


Love the Way We Make Love

by writergirl8



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dirty Talk, Dry Humping, Everything is the same but Stiles didn't lose his virginity to Malia in Eichen House, F/M, First Time, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, References to Depression, Season 4 AU, Sharing a Bed, suicide discussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 21:29:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12308166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirl8/pseuds/writergirl8
Summary: “Come on, Stiles,” Lydia pushes. “What’s the one thing? What would you regret?”She’s looking into his eyes so urgently that Stiles is beginning to wonder if Lydia has a specific answer in mind. You, he thinks, aching. I’d regret not getting to talk to you anymore.But that’s not one-hundred-percent it. That’s not everything. And there’s something else nudging at him, something that bleeds less than not getting to see Lydia every day. He can give that answer to her. The way he feels like he can’t breathe when he thinks about any version of consciousness in which Lydia Martin is unreachable to him? Yeah. That’s gotta be just for him.“Um,” says Stiles. “I guess I would regret dying a virgin.”“Well.” Lydia pauses. “Maybe I can fix that.”





	Love the Way We Make Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stilesbanshee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stilesbanshee/gifts).



> Wow. Okay. Some fics take forever to write. Some fics feel like emotional children. Some fics, you care about so much you take 85 years to edit them. Some fics are like a return from the dead for your mental health. Some fics are embarrassing and necessary all at the same time because you've just gotta get them out of your head. This fic, if you didn't already realize from this obnoxiously cheesy intro that I am writing to delay pressing the post button on this story, is all of those fics. 
> 
> The idea for this fic was born when I promised Kay (Stilesbanshee) back in July that I would write her a fic where Stiles loses his virginity to Lydia. I thought about the way I would want it to happen and s4 fix-it-fic was born. I would've loved it if Stiles' and Lydia's platonic relationship had gotten this close-- unfortunately, it didn't on-screen, but it did in my heart. Take that, Jeff Davis. 
> 
> Anyways, Kay has been incredibly patient while waiting for this fic. I'm so glad to finally get it to her. She is also the one who selected the title after lots of consideration, which is from Rocket by Beyonce. Kay, girl, this title is perfect and so are you. I hope so much that you like this fic and that I gave you a Stiles that you can love. I adore you and all you do for me and the fandom and your logic and common sense and your humor and your TV addiction and your take-no-shit attitude and your undeniable sweetness. You're truly something special. 
> 
> Quick disclaimer-- as I said before, _this fic begins between 3b and 4. Everything is the same except Stiles never hooked up with Malia in Eichen so he is still Untouched._
> 
> Another important thing is that there's a moment (you'll know it when you see it) where Lydia makes a sexual decision that is very unwise and, while it was hot to write, I feel the need to Disclaim that you can still get pregnant that way because of... well, if you need it explained, come to my inbox on tumblr (I'm rongasm). And also you can obviously still get STDs from this. But, anyways, let's all assume that neither of these two people have STDs and Lydia is on free birth control provided by the Affordable Care Act. With that in mind, this Stydia sex is brought to you by President Obama. 
> 
> This fic was beta read by some of my favorite ladies in the whole world: Jade, wellsjahasghost, who is The Funniest Fucker Alive. Rachel, madgrad2011, who is The Most Emotionally In Touch Fucker Alive. And Catherine, youaretoosmart, who is the Smartest Fucker Alive. I love all of you fuckers so so so much. You've made my time here in the Teen Wolf fandom incredible. I'm gonna cry. 
> 
> Guys, I'm rusty. I gotta say that I'm rusty. And I also gotta say that I attempted to write this like a YA novel, in that style, and I don't think it works in every area. But I've been working on this fic since August and editing it for a solid week and letting it go out into the world feels really good and really scary at the same time. So what I'm trying to say is that I hope, so much, that you read it and love the time you get to spend with Stiles and Lydia as much as I do. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy.

Stiles wakes up to the feeling of fingers roaming his skin.

"Shhh." Two cool thumbs trickle down his temples, soothing the hollows of his cheeks. His body settles, every piece of him exhaling at the feeling of the two knees on either side of his hips pressing against him, tight. "Shhh, Stiles. Shhhh."

The voice is more melodic than usual; a higher pitch— like she's trying to find the right song with which to soothe him. The bed rattles underneath him, his mind shaking possibly even more than his body is. Because there aren't words to tell Lydia Martin that she doesn't have to speak softly to him, or care to sound soothing. Just the presence of her voice is enough to send him spinning back into the boy who loved her too much, too hard, too reverently.

It only takes a few moments, after that, for his heart to return to its steady beat.

_You. Are. Too. Smart. You. Are. Too. Smart. You. Are. Too Smart. To need the instructions._

"M'sorry." His eyes still closed, unable to look at her. "Sorry, Lydia."

"It's okay," she whispers, rolling off of him and settling onto the bed next to him. Stiles follows, flame chasing the wind, and inexplicably finds his head on her stomach moments later, hand heavy on her hip as she strokes his hair.

It shouldn't be this easy, intimacy.

But then again, maybe it should, when his heart still beats to the rhythm of her words.

"I don't wanna talk about it," he mumbles, already anticipating her next question.

"That's okay," Lydia replies. "Talk to me about something else."

This is what they do at night. Drown out the hurt with words. Strangle the loneliness with friendship. Lying in Lydia's purple sheets, Stiles has learned what it sounds like when their voices harmonize and what it feels like when her knees nudge up against his under the covers. He has learned that Lydia's hair smells like a home and that she's afraid, more than anything, of powerlessness.

She had told him, with her fingers tracing the lines on his palm, that he had faced her worst fear this past winter.  _And you survived_ , she had said, reverence and determination intermingling in her voice. When she'd run her fingers up to the sensitive skin of his forearm, Stiles had shuddered.

"I steal my dad's jack and fill it with pepsi."

"Everyone does that." There's a smile in her voice at the normalcy of all of it. Stiles can hear it in the darkness. He suddenly wants to kiss her chin, wants to follow it up her jawline until he can nuzzle her temple with his nose.

Instead, he rolls off of her stomach and onto his back again, training his eyes on the ceiling.

"Nah. I do it because I don't want him drinking it."

In the pale moonlight, Lydia's hand slides across the sheets, infinitesimally closer to him. Stiles looks down at her fingers, contemplating them, before he pushes his against the tips of hers. Her nails are short— she bites them, she'd told him one night, a look of dismay on her face as she'd said it. He'd laughed into her (his) pillow at that expression, snickering at the ridiculousness of the most flawed, most perfect girl in the world seeming genuinely infuriated at her own incapability to stop biting her nails. Two days later, Stiles had sat on the bathroom floor with her and helped her scrub off the bright pink polish that she'd put on her nails that reminded her too much of the pink at the corners of Allison's lips.

Lydia's hands had been shaking as Stiles had repainted a soft blue onto her fingers. When he looks at her nails now, he sees a pretty cotton fabric with smudges of dirt from the floor of a locker room in Beacon Hills High School.

"Does it work?"

"He takes a sip," begins Stiles, "he realizes what I did. And then he yells at me. But he doesn't drink anymore. And he never changes the lock on the cabinet, even though he knows I can pick it." He hesitates. "I think he just likes to know it's there. Like…. like a safety net."

"That's why he keeps you too," Lydia says fondly. "You're the safety net for his safety net."

Lydia isn't wearing a bra underneath the worn t-shirt that she'd borrowed from him. Stiles wants to ask her if he's her safety net too, but the words stick in his throat, thickened by guilt.

"Sorry if I woke you up."

"I was already awake."

He turns his head to the side so that his words are smushed into her purple pillowcase.

"Wish I could stop you from having nightmares."

"You can't."

He opens one eye at the sweetness of her voice. It's one he hasn't ever quite heard before— so genuine, so truthful, that it reminds him of the way his mom used to say prayers with him as she tucked him into bed.

"I can do something else, though."

Lydia seems a little unnerved.

"What's that?"

"I can be your best friend."

He can't promise that he won't ever leave her, even if he wants to be able to give her the assurance. He can't promise he'll never die or have to walk away from her due to circumstance. But he can promise her that he'll never want to. He can promise to be a best friend for her when she had just lost her real one. He can promise her everything that comes with friendship— affection and secrets and  _time_  and the feeling of never, ever wanting to leave.

Her eyes smile before her mouth does, a small, closed mouth look that mixes confusion with gratitude.

"Pinky swear?"

He wraps his pinky against the one she offers him, schooling his features into something solemn.

"Pinky swear."

* * *

Friday night is movie night. Insipid movies, to be exact, because that's what best friends do. They sit on the couch with blankets draped over their legs to shield them from the December chill. They're at Lydia's house because they're never at Stiles' anymore. His mattress hasn't been replaced yet, and he still can't quite forgive himself for the pain he caused his father.

Best friends nudge each other with their feet under the blankets, take stupid selfies, fight over who gets the under-popped kernel of popcorn. Best friends don't have to agree to watch idiotic romantic comedies because they already know that having blood on your hands is more than enough action, adventure, and horror for a lifetime. Best friends argue over whether Reese Witherspoon or Jennifer Garner were a hotter leading lady and play fuck, marry, kiss with the love interests.

(They used to play fuck, marry, kill, back when he hadn't known what it felt like to feel Scott's organs attempting to heal themselves around the sword that Stiles was shoving deeper into his best friend's body.)

And best friends talk about shit. Stiles knows that. Which is why, on this particular night, he watches Amanda Bynes desperately attempt to climb over the hedge of a mansion and thinks about how he wouldn't have minded falling a few weeks ago. Wouldn't have minded hitting his head.

"I think I'm ready to die," he says conversationally.

Lydia doesn't even hit pause.

"That's incredibly selfish," she replies sniffily, still staring at the screen.

"I know," Stiles admits. "It's not like I would… uh, you know. But, I dunno, I think I made my peace with it. When I was in Eichen, I thought I was about to die. I, like, literally thought that I was living my last few weeks of life, and I think I shoulda been more pissed about it."

"Why do you think you weren't?"

Her tone is blasé, but he can hear the tension in her voice. The tenseness of her body makes Stiles feel like maybe there's something he should try harder for. Something to stay for aside from all the other stuff that he thought he could let go of.

Lydia has turned towards him with ice in her eyes and an unbridled distaste curling at her lip, and in a flash, the feeling— of the first day of school, of watching the Star Wars trilogy for the first time, of learning how to skateboard with Scott— is gone.

"I don't know," he admits. "I guess I feel like it's hard to have regrets when your life is defined by the weirdest fucking circumstances possible. Like, does it suck that I would never make it to prom? Sure. But I've hit a giant alpha werewolf with a baseball bat. That's possibly a milestone that surpasses prom."

"Ridiculous." She sounds haughty again. "The attitude of someone who doesn't know how tight my prom dress is." Stiles can't help it: he smiles down at his hands where they're settled on top of his blanket, twisting and churning just as much as his stomach is. "There's really nothing you'd regret missing out on?"

Her voice is curious now, but not in a pushy way. He likes that about hanging out with Lydia. She'd spent so much time feeling neutral-to-nothing about him that it's ingrained into her to have no expectations from him. Lydia doesn't really care what he does or says or thinks— but she wants to know anyways.

It's a fine line, and one that he's glad to be just shy to the right of.

Which is why it kinda sucks that he has to lie to her right now.

"Uh, not really. No. Nothing for me, I don't think."

"Nothing."

Her affect is so flat, so disbelieving, that Stiles has to chuckle.

"Do you think you know what my hypothetical-dead-body would regret, miss 'IQ-higher-than-one-seventy?'"

"What about professional success?" He places his mouth in the crook of his elbow and blows out obnoxiously. "Okay, okay. What about… um. Marriage. Kids. Going to Scotland with Scott and making way too many stupid puns about it."

"You might be onto something with the whole pun thing," comments Stiles, pretending to be thoughtful. Lydia smacks his arm.

"Be serious."

"Because we never do that," he replies sarcastically.

"Come on, Stiles," Lydia pushes. "What's the one thing? What would you regret?"

She's looking into his eyes so urgently that Stiles is beginning to wonder if Lydia has a specific answer in mind.  _You,_ he thinks, aching.  _I'd regret not getting to talk to you anymore_.

But that's not one-hundred-percent it. That's not everything. And there's something else nudging at him, something that bleeds less than not getting to see Lydia every day. He can give that answer to her. The way he feels like he can't breathe when he thinks about any version of consciousness in which Lydia Martin is unreachable to him? Yeah. That's gotta be just for him.

"Um," says Stiles. "I guess I would regret dying a virgin."

He doesn't look at her when he says it, too embarrassed to admit weakness. Because this thing? It fucking  _sucks_. Everybody has this experience that he doesn't have and it's like he hasn't been let in on a secret. It's like there's this big societal joke and Stiles doesn't get to laugh at the punchline because he didn't get to hear the end.

"Really?"

And, okay, he wasn't expecting the crinkle between her brow. He wasn't expecting the look of amused incomprehension on her face.

"Yeah, really." He pulls his leg away from her foot so that no part of them is touching anymore. "What's so weird about that?"

"It's not weird, it's just… well. Simple.  _Fixable_."

"Okay," Stiles replies slowly. "But, uh. I haven't been able to  _fix_ it. Yet."

"Well." Lydia pauses. "Maybe I can."

A few moments ago, Stiles had been struggling to look at Lydia. Now, he can't look away. She's staring at him expectantly, something akin to ease in her expression, and that can't be right, that can't be possible, because Lydia Martin doesn't offer to take his virginity and then act like it's not a big deal. Nobody should do that, but  _Lydia Martin_?

"You," he repeats back to her. "You want to fix it."

"If that's the thing you would regret the most? Stiles, yes. It's… not that difficult to get done."

"'Get done?'"

This still feels unreal. This still feels like she's joking. But Lydia doesn't let Stiles remain in disbelief for too long. She leans forward to put her hand on his knee, staring at him intently.

"You get the fact that I thought I watched you die, right?" Her words have a sense of urgency under the smoothness of her voice, as though she's suddenly the one who is trying to coax him into sex. "Scott killed the nogitsune right in front of us. We both watched him shatter into pieces— watched  _you_ shatter. And we knew it could possibly kill you and you keeled over and… god, Stiles. I thought you were just gone."

"You thought I died?"

"I did." Her voice is deathly serious. "I got on the floor with you and I checked your pulse and your heart was steady and your eyes opened and it felt like it was an hour instead of a few seconds. So if this is the one thing that you feel like you've missed out in life, I'm going to help you get what you need." She pauses. "Because there aren't any guarantees, and both of us know that."

The last sentence is said with a harshness that Stiles hadn't anticipated. He hears Allison's name in the crack of her voice— hears the thud of Allison's body falling to the ground, even though he wasn't there. Feels, inexplicably, like he will never get enough of unravelling Lydia's code.

"We're friends." His argument is starting to become less convincing, possibly because he doesn't want to be arguing about this at all. "We… we pinky swore on it."

"Friends do each other favors all the time."

Stiles has to snort at that logic.

"Jesus, Lydia, that's not exactly a story I wanna tell one day. 'How'd you lose your virginity?' 'Oh, one of my friends took pity on me.'"

Finally, Lydia reaches over and presses pause on the remote. The movie lurches to a halt, and she throws the control to the side, reaching over to tug the blanket away from Stiles' lap. Slowly, her eyes sweep the length of his body, staring at him. They pass over his purposefully mussed up hair, his too-loose t-shirt, his Adam's apple, and the semi he's got going in his jeans.

"It wouldn't be a pity fuck," she tells him plainly. "It's just two friends giving each other what they want."

"'Each other?'" He frowns. "What do  _you—_?"

"Your fingers," Lydia says boldly. "I like your fingers. I think they'd feel really good inside of me." Everything goes hazy as Lydia sits up on her knees, appraising him again. Stiles can't feel his face. He can't feel his teeth. He can't feel his toes. She leans forward and scrapes her teeth against the shell of his ear before whispering the next sentence in his ear. "I think I'd be tight and warm around them, and they'd feel amazing when they were in my body." She tilts her head to the side, backing away to appraise him. "Do you want to know what that's like, Stiles?"

He can't help it. He gulps.

"Uh, um, I… I dunno."

"You don't know?" She moves closer again, seeming curious. "Really? Because I think you do."

"Lydia," he says warningly, feeling himself get harder at the mere idea of what she's proposing. Lydia reaches for his hand, pulling it towards her. She runs her thumb down three of his fingers before she lowers her head and kisses four of his knuckles.

"See, I think you've wanted to fuck me for a long time and we're friends and I like your fingers so you should say yes."

She pulls back, staring at him expectantly.

Two seconds later, he's cupping the back of her head so that she doesn't smash it against the back of the couch when he settles on top of her. He digs her body into the couch with his and feels a keen sense of triumph as he kisses Lydia Martin for the second time.

Stiles isn't sure where the confidence is coming from, but he can feel Lydia's grin against his mouth rather than see it. It's the first time since Allison died that he can't see sadness painted across her lips when she smiles, and his heart beats faster at that, pounds and pounds and pounds.

_You. Are. Too. Smart. You. Are. Too. Smart. You. Are. Too. Smart._

For a long time, it's silent as he moves his lips against hers, following her lead. He can hear himself breathe heavily through his nose, unwilling to part from her. It's the only sound in an otherwise empty room— Stiles inhaling, the clock ticking, Lydia shifting against the fabric of the couch as she attempts to subtly rub against something, anything.

"Kiss my neck." Her voice is breathy in his ear, her hands are sneaking up the back of his shirt, and her breasts are pressed hard against his chest. Stiles moves down to the warm skin of her neck, nuzzling it with his nose before he places soft kisses on it. Lydia reaches for his hand, sliding it up the path of her stomach and to her breast, settling his fingers over it. She covers his hand with hers and squeezes. Stiles groans. "Good."

"S-so how does this work?" he asks, pulling away. "Do we just—?"

"We build up to it," Lydia says. "So that you trust me. So that you know I'm… I'm going to treat you well." Something about the way she doesn't meet his eyes makes Stiles want to ask about her first time. He doesn't. He kisses her cheek instead. "We'll just… we'll just make out today."

She stumbles over her words because he's squeezing her breast experimentally, holding himself above her with his right hand so that he can watch the way his fingers scrunch up the fabric of her shirt. For some reason, he's fascinated by this— by the fact that he is cradling the breasts that he had stared at from the beginning of puberty. There's something animalistic about it, something that doesn't feel like they're friends or grown-ups or two fucked up ghosts of their past selves. He feels like a boy playing with the tits of the girl he likes while they pant into each other's mouths, eyes bright and minds clear.

"Tell me I can take your shirt off."

Lydia bites her lip. Nods. Then she pushes him back, wiggling underneath him and turning around to face the opposite direction.

"Have you ever taken off a girl's bra before, Stiles?"

As she speaks, she pulls her shirt over her head and tosses it to the floor. Then she sweeps her long, lightly curled hair over one shoulder, so that it tumbles down to her waist. Stiles surveys the landscape in front of him: her bare back, the bumps of her spine, and the scars on her skin. He wants to hear her stories; he wants to know everything about her. Instead, he finally turns his focus to the clasp that rests against her pale skin. The purple is a stark contrast against the body he'd just been admiring. Stiles sits on his knees, running his index finger along the underside of the clasp, trailing it against her body.

Lydia shudders. He silently traces the same finger down her spine, landing right above the zipper on her high waisted skirt. Curiously, he continues to move his hand downwards, tilting it to the right and carefully cupping her ass, wrinkling her skirt in his hand.

"You're stalling," Lydia admonishes, voice strained. "Unhook my bra."

She'd made it easy for him by turning around, and Stiles carefully pulls the teeth of the clasp out of the hooks. Lydia doesn't lift her arms to try to keep the bra on. Instead, she lets it slide down her shoulders and into her lap.

"Lydia, can I—?"

He can see the curves of her breasts, just barely, where they sit heavy against her chest.

"No," she says. "Stop asking questions." There's a small pause. Then: "Think about what you want. Tell me what you want. And  _do_ what you want." She turns her head all the way to the right, so that he can see the dimples on her cheek when she smiles. "That's lesson one."

* * *

(They don't talk about it for a while after that because best friends don't talk about wanting to see each other naked. They just don't. Stiles, having had a best friend since pre-school, is eighty-nine percent sure of this fact. Like, not one-hundred-percent. But eighty-nine is high enough to know not to bring it up when looking at Lydia makes his chest ache so much he thinks his heart is about to smash itself to pulp.)

* * *

"What is it with this group of people and seedy motels?" Lydia says, her eyes skating over to Scott. "Because I'd like to say, for the record, that Marriotts have far nicer accommodations."

"This is the closest place we could find to the club." One of his shoulders twitches upwards as he hands Malia a roomkey. "You gonna be okay sharing with Kira?"

"I can sleep in the woods," suggests Malia. "It doesn't bother me. Then Kira can sleep with you."

"Oh, that's okay," Scott says easily, his eyes flicking downwards as his cheeks begin to glow a little bit red. Kira's are even rosier, matching his level of embarrassment with ease. "I'm sharing with Stiles."

He feels it: Lydia's body tensing up next to his, a knee-jerk reaction to the idea of not sleeping in the same bed. Looking over at her, he sees her determinedly avoiding his gaze.

"We can't leave Lydia by herself," says Stiles. "It's not safe. She doesn't have any active powers."

Scott looks between the two of them, key dangling from his fingertips as he tries to read the situation.

"Oookay. Well, Stiles, what are you—?"

"He can sleep in my room," Lydia cuts-in smoothly. "Kira can sleep with you, Malia can get cozy in a den somewhere."

Stiles covers a snicker with an ill-disguised cough when he sees the scolding look on Scott's face.

"Works for me," Stiles says, shrugging.

"Right." Scott shakes his head at the two of them, a little disbelievingly. "I keep forgetting that you guys—"

"Yes, thank you," interjects Lydia, snatching the key out of his hand and stalking off towards the motel rooms. Stiles follows close at her heels, as he always is, waiting patiently at her side while she slides the key into the lock.

They know which side of the bed each of them takes now, so when Lydia drops her purse on the right, Stiles isn't fussed.

"You should probably be nicer to Malia," he says as she sits down on the bed and takes off her boots.

"You sound like Scott."

For a moment he struggles with whether that feels like a good thing or not. On one hand, Scott is a true alpha and the best dude Stiles knows. On the other hand, Scott's not the one sleeping in this motel room with Lydia tonight. Stiles is.

He steps forward, crouching down on the floor in front of Lydia to get her attention.

"Hey," he murmurs. "You know she's never gonna replace Allison, right?" Lydia stares at him, face expressionless. "Malia isn't a replacement for Allison. We're never gonna stop loving Allison or missing her or wanting her to be here. You know that, right?"

Slowly, her shoulders untense.

"Of course I do." Her voice is light, like none of that is what really matters, and how dare Stiles suggest such a thing.

"Just making sure," says Stiles, lips quirking upwards. He stands, glances into the bathroom, and wrinkles his nose. "You need to take a shower?"

Lydia shakes her head.

"Tomorrow."

"Yeah. Same."

"So… should we go to bed?"

He hesitates.

"Maybe we should go over the plan again."

"See if we can make it better?" suggests Lydia, irony in her tone.

"Hey. It's a  _fine_ plan."

"It's a  _stupid_ plan."

"We made it up together."

"How does that make it not stupid?"

"It's gonna work, Lydia Martin."

"This plan is stupid and we're going to die," she replies.

Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she stands up and begins to root through her backpack for pajamas. Dutifully, Stiles turns around without having to be asked, hands tightening into fists when he hears Lydia's skirt drop to the floor. A moment later she's giving him the all-clear and he's turning around to see her wearing his favorite t-shirt, the one he's been looking for since Wednesday.

"Ehem," says Stiles. "Got anything to say for yourself?"

"About what?" Lydia asks, pretending to be confused.

"About stealing my clothing."

"You left it on my bedroom floor." She seems unconcerned with the look on his face. "It was fair game for pajamas."

He puts his hands on his hips and shakes his head at her. Lydia ignores this and walks into the bathroom to wash her face.

"You better run!" Stiles calls after her.

"Might as well get practice," comments Lydia. "This terrible plan will probably involve running."

"Well, did you finally bring sensible running shoes?" There's a long pause during which Lydia stares at herself in the mirror, blinking innocently. "Yeah. That's what I thought."

He's still laughing at the face she makes when she kicks the bathroom door shut to wash up in peace.

* * *

"What's this extra hundred dollars?"

"I call it the 'yes you do look twenty-one' to me fee," the man says, winking at Lydia.

Instinctively, Stiles' fingers curl protectively around her wrist, reminding her that he's there. She turns around, presumably to tell him that she's just fine, but her eyes snag on something over his shoulder. Stiles turns around to see Liam's best friend climbing the stairs.

"Shit." He tugs at Lydia's wrist. "What if he's looking for Liam?"

"He's not going to find him," replies Lydia, keg momentarily forgotten. "And we need to come up with two hundred dollars in the next five minutes so, if you hadn't noticed, Stiles, this is the  _least_ our problems right now."

He turns to her, placing both hands on her shoulders, crouching a little so that he can look her in the eye.

"Lydia. Perspective."

She stubbornly meets his gaze for about a second before sighing and turning to the delivery man.

"We'll just go get your money."

Then she snatches Stiles' hand in hers and stomps towards the back of the room, following Liam's friend up the thickly carpeted staircase. Walking down the hallway, the sounds of partying teenagers grow quieter. Lydia doesn't let go of his hand, pulling him through the hallway until they finally reach the room that Liam's friend had walked into.

"Excuse me," she says, bursting into the room. "The party's  _downstairs._ "

The boy turns around, startled.

"Oh, sorry," he says, seeming mostly unconcerned by the presence of an angry hostess. "I was just looking for my friend."

"Well he's probably down. Stairs," Lydia repeats. "Where the party is."

The boy's eyes flick over to Stiles, as if silently attempting to ask what he had done that was so evil.

"Hi," Stiles says, jerking his chin slightly. "I'm Stiles."

"Right, I know." The boy nods. "I go to lacrosse games a lot."

"You interested in playing?"

"No." The two of them pause awkwardly. "I'm Mason."

"Well, Mason," Lydia cuts in, hand pulling out of Stiles' as she stalks across the room to collect two wine glasses that are resting on a side table. "The party is downstairs."

"You mentioned that. Once or twice."

"It was twice," says Stiles.

"Definitely twice," Mason agrees.

"Get out of here  _now_ ," Lydia barks, finally losing her patience. She grabs onto Mason's arm, attempting to tug him out of the room, and that's when the two glasses slide out of her hand, clattering to the ground.

For a moment, all three of them stare at the red wine seeping into the white carpet.

"Lydia—" Stiles starts warningly, sensing a freakout coming on. He's seen the face she's making plenty of times before. It's the one she'd made when all the pink markers had been taken from the box at the center of the playroom. It's the one she'd made when the sales associate at Macy's had told her she didn't have the dress Lydia wanted in the size down.

"Oh god, the carpet!"

Ignoring him, she falls to the floor and snatches up the glasses, futilely rubbing at the wine stains with her cardigan. He watches as her face gets redder, tears beginning to spill. Seeing Lydia cry isn't new, but it's still a little strange. She cries over  _important_ things. Jackson. The supernatural. She cries into his shoulder when she has nightmares that are too vivid. She cried into Scott's shoulder as Allison's casket was lowered into the ground.

She doesn't cry over red wine on white carpet.

"Lydia, breathe," instructs Stiles, immediately falling to the floor with her. "You're okay. It's okay."

"It's  _not_  okay," she argues, furiously wiping away a tear with the heel of her hand. "I told my mom I wouldn't mess up the house. We're… we're trying to sell it, we can't get in touch with my dad and he stopped sending the… we  _need_ to get in touch with my dad, but he… and we have to  _sell it_ but there can't be wine stains on the carpet, Stiles, there can't be, I can't make things  _harder_ for my mom, I—"

Her voice gets too high to hear, so Stiles just takes off his flannel and helps her attempt to sop up the wine, knowing that it's moot.

"I'll go get some club soda and salt," suggests Mason, his voice bright. Both of them turn to him, a little startled, as if they'd forgotten he was there. "It'll come out."

They watch him leave, Lydia continuing to rub back and forth across the floor.

"He isn't so bad," Stiles catches a few of her tears with his thumb. "Why couldn't Scott have bit that one?" She doesn't laugh. That's how he knows how upset she is. "Lydia. We'll figure it out," Stiles promises. "Remember the time you told me I'm the one who always figures it out?"

This time, her mouth twitches a little bit.

Okay. Memories. Memories he can do.

"Remember the first time Prada bit me?" asks Stiles gently. "Man, that fucker hates me. And I totally remember when you first got him, and you were so excited. You had one of those sidekick phones with the big keyboard, remember? And you took pictures of him and spent two whole days showing everybody in the seventh grade who you thought was worth your time. They would be crouching over the tiny screen, looking at the pictures, and I would sit in the back of the classroom and kinda wish that you'd look up and ask me to stare at a bunch of pixels too."

She's stopped rubbing the carpet and is watching him, seeming fascinated by the story, as if he's telling her about somebody else's life.

"You were the first girl I ever danced with, you know," Stiles says, swallowing down his nervousness. Lydia's eyebrows raise in interest. "Yeah. The first time I tried to ask you to dance was at the sixth grade dance, but you totally ignored me, which, yeah. Made sense. And then I kept trying to ask you in middle school, but whenever I got too close to you my palms got all sweaty and my hair would start sticking to my forehead— cuz, remember, I had that, like, 70s haircut?— and I made excuses never to ask you. And I actually went to homecoming and the winter formal by myself freshman year because Scott wouldn't go but I thought maybe I would be able to ask you if there wasn't anyone around to see me rejected."

Lydia smiles, staring down at the floor. His hands are now covering hers, stopping her from resuming the scrubbing again. He doesn't quite know when she'd stopped crying.

"So by the time you danced with me sophomore year, it was, like, the  _best_ moment of my life. I remember thinking that you smelled really, really, really,  _really_ good, and my stomach had these crazy fuckin' butterflies because… the way you had your head tucked into my neck like that? It made me think that maybe you felt safe with me. And that made me so happy. I really wanted you to like me, Lydia."

She breathes out, steady.

"I do," Lydia whispers. "I do like you. I like you a lot."

Stiles grins.

"I like you a lot too."

When Mason comes back into the room, it doesn't escape Stiles' notice that they pull their hands apart like they've been caught doing something far more intimate.

He wonders if Lydia notices too.

* * *

The text pops up on Stiles' phone just as he's getting out of the shower on Sunday morning—  _My house. Now._ Unspecific words never mean anything good, so he drops his towel to the floor and trips into jeans and a t-shirt before taking off for Lydia's place, heart in his throat. If Stiles had been another kid, he may have felt guilty for taking advantage of his dad's position to speed like a crazy person down the streets of Beacon Hills. When he gets to Lydia's house in record time, however, he can't find it in himself to care very much. Bat in hand, Stiles catapults himself to the front door, ramming his fist against it repeatedly.

"Lydia!?"

Seconds later, the door opens, revealing a half-dressed Lydia glaring judgmentally at him.

"Why do you have your bat?" she asks, drawling the words as her eyes flicker downwards to assess his unkempt appearance.

"Why is nobody trying to kill you?" demands Stiles, heart pounding a little more steadily when it becomes apparent that Lydia hadn't just been about to be the next victim of the Scary Movie knock-off that has become their lives.

"Because I'm pretty," says Lydia. "You know, your hair looks better when it isn't gelled. You should wear it like that more often. But you need a haircut, by the way."

He blinks at her several times.

"Your text… it made it seem like it was urgent."

She sighs, grabbing him by the wrist and tugging him into the house, flipping her hair over her shoulder as they go.

"It  _is_ urgent," insists Lydia. "So get in here."

He follows her up the stairs obediently and is still blinking in confusion when they end up in Lydia's bedroom. She closes the door, then flops onto the bed, turning around to look at him expectantly.

"What?" asks Stiles, uncertain.

" _Now_ you can ask me why you're here."

The way she says it, it seems like she feels that she is offering him a gift or a reward. He wonders why she's not getting the fact that he had  _literally_ assumed she was being murdered.

"Okay, Lydia," Stiles says, slightly irked. He rolls up his sleeves. Crosses his arms over his chest. "Why am I here."

"Because," she replies, puffing up importantly, "I made a lesson plan." He stares for a second, not catching on. "A lesson plan for the sex thing, Stiles."

"What?"

"The sex thing," she repeats, as though he hadn't heard her.

It's not like it's obvious. They haven't talked about it in weeks.

"I… I sorta thought we were just gonna hook up until eventually I—"

"If you finish that thought with 'slip you one' you can just march right out of this house."

"Regardless, why do you need a lesson plan?"

"Because the vast majority of boys I have had the absolute misfortune of hooking up with in the last year have been totally and completely incompetent. And if I can send just one guy out into the world with a stamp of approval on his forehead, I will have made what I know to be an incredible contribution to women everywhere. And you're not a complete Neanderthal, so I figured you'd be a fine option to bestow my efforts and wisdom upon."

It doesn't take very long for the words to register in Stiles for what they really are.

"I'm not your  _science project_ ," he bursts out, furious. "Jesus, Lydia, I barely wanted to make out with you in the first place like that and now you're telling me that you wanna turn me into an experiment? What, are you my fairy godmother now? Are there gonna be birds that help me figure out which types of condoms to buy?" He shakes his head, turning back towards the door. "No. No way, Lydia. I'm not a lab rat."

"So you're telling me that you're saying no to sitting on my bed with me right now and watching porn?"

He pauses, hand on the door handle.

"Porn?"

"I know. Your favorite TV show," she teases.

"You want me to watch porn… with you?"

"On my bed," Lydia reiterates. "For educational purposes."

"Is it educational porn?"

"Oh, no. It's real porn."

"You wanna watch real porn together."

"Why are you not grasping this? Would you like me to say it in French?"

His fingers loosen from the door handle.

"God yes," he breathes out. Behind him, he hears Lydia snicker.

"Come on," she says, patting the bed next to her. "I even got you a notebook."

As he slides onto the bed, Lydia sets up her laptop, seeming prim-and-proper as she checks to see if he's settled in. To watch porn.

With her.

Okay.

"Are you ready?" asks Lydia.

"No."

"Okay." She waits. "How about now?"

"Yep, let's do it."

Lydia hits her finger against the play button and sets her laptop to full-screen, settling back against her pillows.

"You can relax," she tells him.

"Somehow I sincerely doubt that is a possibility."

She chooses to ignore this, instead hitting the volume button on the porn twice.

"Take notes on things you want to try, questions you want to ask, things like that. First, we're watching the bad porn."

"Bad p—?" begins Stiles, but his question is answered by the sound of a doorbell ringing and a girl wearing terrifyingly high heels with blue jeans getting off of the couch and going to answer it. When the door opens, there's a bald man covered in tattoos standing there, holding a pizza. "Oh. Yeah."

Lydia snorts as she fast forwards a little bit.

"Fake boobs," she says immediately, stopping about five minutes in. The twenty-something girl and the man, who is most certainly in his forties, are now on the floor of the large, echoey house. Her shirt is off, and he's sucking on her tits. "You can tell because they're too perky for how big they are."

"Does that feel good?" Stiles points to the way the guy is slapping the girl's breasts underneath her bra.

"If it does, it's the kink, not the sensation," replies Lydia. "You want to focus your efforts onto her nipples. Slapping side-boob isn't going to do much for most girls."

She skips more time in the video, settling on an image of the heavily tattooed man with his penis in the girl's mouth.

"You know," says Stiles wryly, "I thought watching porn with you would be hotter."

"Look a the way he's trying to throat-fuck her." Lydia sounds distasteful. "You should pre-negotiate terms of throat fucking before you do that to a girl you're inexperienced with. It's only polite."

"I had no idea sex was that organized."

"I mean, if you attempt to suffocate me without my permission, I would be happy to  _organize_  your funeral."

"Noted."

Rolling her eyes at the grunts of the man on the screen, Lydia skips forward some more in the video.

"This position is uncomfortable." She skips forward again. "Oh, now he's just being lazy." The video moves forward once more as Lydia continues to skip scenes. "Hot, but most of the time it doesn't go deep enough for the girl, so she can't come from it without clitoral stimulation even if she is capable of coming simply from penetrative sex." Thirty seconds later, the woman in the video wails out loudly, crying out so loud Stiles thinks she might be getting murdered. "And that is what a fake orgasm sounds like."

"Gee," says Stiles. "I'm learning a whole lot today, Professor Martin."

Lydia elbows him.

"Behave yourself. We have a lot to do and only a limited amount of time."

She closes the tab, arriving at another video that looks like it's slightly better quality. It's not like Stiles doesn't know what porn he likes, but he mostly watches gay and lesbian porn for this exact reason— the dudes in het porn are gross, and he's way too bisexual to enjoy watching a hideous man fuck a girl in weird-ass positions while she makes weird and fake noises.

"Is this one better?"

Lydia presses play and goes to full-screen again, slouching a little lower against her pillows

"You tell me."

He knows she means to be mysterious, but her voice comes across a bit dreamy as she turns her cheek against her pillow and settles more comfortably onto her mattress. When Stiles turns back to the screen, he sees the man and the woman simply kissing each other, their hands sliding all over each other's bodies. There isn't any dialogue, just music, and the sound of them breathing into each other's mouths. Stiles feels like a voyeur as he watches their mouths meet, heart skipping a beat every time he catches a glimpse of the way their tongues rub up against each other.

"Yeah," he decides. "This one's better."

"So what do you notice?"

Her voice is almost hypnotic as she speaks, like she doesn't want to break the trace he's in.

"His hand's so big. It's covering her neck."

"Good," Lydia says. "See how he touches her hair and then goes back to her skin?"

"He's teasing her." Stiles' voice is strained.

"Precisely."

The two actors stand, stumbling off of the couch and towards the bed. Stiles' mouth is dry as they pull off each other's clothes, dropping them unceremoniously to the ground. There aren't as many close-ups in this one until the guy suddenly has his fingers gently cupping and squeezing the girl's breast, his mouth finding her nipple.

"He's sucking so hard. His cheeks are all hollowed out, see?"

"I do see," Lydia tells him, hushed. "What else?"

"His whole hand is covering her hip."

"He's making her feel smaller, like he's going to take care of her. And if he hitches her leg over his hip, he'll be able to press himself against her center and rub. It teases her and gives him some relief simultaneously."

Around the time that the man trails his nose down the girl's stomach and ends up with it between her thighs, Stiles thinks he is heading quickly and steadily to his death. It's getting more and more difficult not to touch himself, especially considering the fact that he's wearing thin sweatpants that define his hard-on clearly. He knows Lydia can see it. He isn't sure if it's okay or not.

"Can I ask you a question?"

She turns to him, eyes cloudy.

"Mhm?"

"Is it… is it hard to balance when you're sitting on someone's face like that?"

Lydia looks back at the screen, frowning.

"I don't know. I would imagine it depends on how you have your legs and whether your hand is on his shoulders, his dick, his chest, the wall. Factors like that."

"Oh."

The man in the video moans, the girl moving her hips more aggressively over his face in response. They both look completely blissed out.

"Are you turned on?" asks Lydia, sounding very much like she already knows the answer but also like she wants to hear it anyways.

His mouth is dry as he cuts his eyes to her.

"Yeah."

"You can touch yourself." Lydia breathes out, shaky. "As long as it's okay that I watch." He considers this carefully before he nods, reaching down to rub his hand against his dick over his sweatpants, hoping to relieve some of the pressure. "God," she says suddenly, her voice intermingling with the moans of the two people in the video. "I need him to be inside of her. I bet she's so wet. I bet she's aching."

Stiles whimpers, hand stilling on his cock for just a moment. He meets Lydia's eyes again.

"Are you?"

Slowly, she nods, mashing her lips together. He can't look at the video, suddenly. All he can see is Lydia's flushed cheeks and chest as she slowly raises her fingers to her mouth and pushes them inside, sucking on them. Lydia slides her hand into her sleep shorts and lets out a small gasping noise, her head tipping back.

In a moment, she's got her shorts down her legs and Stiles can see the dark spot on her light pink panties; can see where her fingers are moving underneath them. He follows her lead, shucking off his sweatpants so that he can grip his dick under his boxers, jerking it while watching Lydia's fingers. From the tinny speakers, Stiles can hear the woman gasping as she bounces up and down on the man's cock. He can hear her tits slapping against her own chest, and the way his dick slides through her dripping wet pussy as he thrusts into her.

Focusing on Lydia again, he hears the exact same noise coming from her side of the bed as she touches herself, sliding her fingers in and out of her pussy.

"Take off your underwear."

There's no trepidation because he's so turned on, between Lydia and the video. Stiles' boxers hit the floor within the next few moments; he catalogues the way Lydia's eyes latch onto his dick as his hand rubs himself up and down. They're facing each other, with his cock directed towards her. He can't help but imagine what his cum would look like on her stomach.

"This what I'm supposed to do?"

She nods furiously, and Stiles moans, stripping his cock harder, jerking his arm faster and faster, building. He'll do anything she says as long as she keeps touching herself and letting him watch. It's like every fantasy he's ever had come to life. Watching her fingers move underneath her panties, seeing how sopping wet she is, makes it so much more visceral than it had been before, but there's still something about this that feels like déjà vu. There are more details now, but this moment right here has always been in his head, buried somewhere in late night wet dreams or fantasies he'd lapsed into during class.

They watch each other like it's some sort of competition as they both get off. The video is still playing, loud and so fucking hot, as Lydia begins to slow down slightly, her mouth falling open like she's helpless to her body's movements. She seizes up, her head tipping backwards as she comes with a strangled whine in the back of her throat. Stiles comes instantly, already so close. But Lydia… Lydia had just gotten off in front of him. And she'd been so fucking sexy. She'd gotten off looking at him fucking himself.

It makes him get off harder, milking his dick for all the orgasm is worth, not thinking about anything but chasing pleasure and lingering in the smoky arousal that curls into him.

When it's over, Lydia launches herself forward to turn off the porn, reaching over Stiles to do it. As she's pulling back, he catches her lips with his, placing his hand lightly on her chest, the fingers gently tickling her neck. Lydia lets out a small sob as he kisses her, using more tongue than she usually does as she responds to him.

"That was…" She pauses, catching her breath. "That was really good, Stiles. Good lesson. Good learning."

When Lydia moves away from him, Stiles feels the regret of missing her almost instantly. He isn't even walking out her door and he already misses her.

"I… forgot to take notes."

Lydia licks her bottom lip, considering this.

"Well," she begins thoughtfully. "I guess we'll just have to try it again."

* * *

"Scott, I'm telling you, I'm  _not_ wrong."

"And I'm telling you that Greenberg is not trying to break your leg so that he'll be able to start this season."

"You didn't see the look on his face."

"You aren't even first line," points out Scott. "Why would he specifically target you?"

"Because," says Stiles importantly. "I'm his main competition."

In the dark, echoing hallway of Beacon Hills High School, Stiles hears Scott sigh emphatically, as if the gush of air from his lungs might help prove his point. Well, Stiles isn't buying it. Scott always sees the best in people, and Stiles always… is right. Stiles is  _always_ right.

"I think we might be able to beat Triton." Scott sounds happy as he trots over to his locker and begins spinning the dial. Despite the disaster that is their lives and the deadpool and everything in between, lacrosse always puts Scott in a better mood. Possibly because he's really good at it. Like, supernaturally good at it. It's fine. Whatever. Stiles isn't jealous or anything. "We were really good last night."

"Yeah, we did a great job as we all tried to break each other's limbs."

"Stiles, Greenberg is  _not_ —"

"Stiles? Scott?" Their argument is halted by the sound of Lydia's voice. She's got her hand on the doorknob of a classroom, looking a little guilty, as though she's been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

"Hey." Scott is gentle as he speaks to her. It makes Stiles happy, seeing his best friend talk to Lydia like that. He can remember when Scott didn't like her at all. Now Scott protects Lydia just as much as Stiles does. "What are you doing out so late? Is there anybody here with you?"

"You were here," she says flippantly, not looking at him. She's too busy raking her eyes up and down Stiles' torso, taking note of his cheeks which are flushed with red from the evening chill. He resists the urge to adjust the gray shirt he'd worn to practice, then turns even more scarlett when he recalls that Lydia had been the one to pick it out for him.

"But we didn't know  _you_ were here."

"Is everything okay?" asks Scott, ignoring Stiles' annoyed words.

"Of course. I had a bit of a headache, so I came back to school to do some equations." They both stare at her in confusion. "Chalk boards are bigger than paper, you know."

Stiles grins at the ground.

"Of course you do math problems to get rid of a headache."

"Got a problem Stilinski?" Her voice is playful, and she takes a step towards him, her hands locked together behind her back as she stares up at him. Even in her heels, she's so short, and when he stares down, he can't help but let his eyes flick to the way her tits press together under her dress. It's instinctive, and a part of him is expecting Lydia to admonish him, but instead she meets his guilty gaze with a smirk. "See something interesting?"

He stares at her. Wipes his tongue across his bottom lip. Then turns to Scott, remembering that he's there.

"She's got chalk on her hands. It's very interesting."

Scott stands there, looking back in forth between the two of them with an expression that can only be described as exasperation, before he shakes his head as though attempting to scatter the moment across his brain so that he doesn't have the capacity to remember it later on.

"I'm just getting my textbook," he informs Lydia, turning back to his locker. "And then I am walking away from… whatever is happening right now."

"Nothing's happening," says Lydia innocently. She turns to Stiles. "Although, you know, I do need a ride."

At this point, he's assuming from the twinkle in her eyes that she's just attempting to annoy Scott.

"What's the magic words?" asks Stiles, suddenly distinctly aware of the fact that Lydia had seen him jerking his dick only a few days ago.

"Please, Stiles?" she says, purposefully making her voice strained as she bites her lip and looks up at him through her lashes.

Scott slams the door to his locker.

"I gotta  _go_ ," he says quickly, scooping his books into his arms. "See you guys tomorrow."

"Bye, Scott." Lydia's eyes are still on Stiles; she watches him like he is the most interesting thing she's ever seen. "So I've been thinking that we're getting behind schedule."

"On my… education?"

Lydia smirks.

"Exactly. Your education. We're  _woefully_ behind on teaching you."

"Well." He coughs a little, his heart beating faster than it had been even at lacrosse practice. "How do you suggest we rectify that?"

It seems like it's the answer Lydia wants, because she tosses her hair over her shoulder and grabs Stiles' hand, pulling him in the direction of the empty parking lot where only his jeep and a few other cars sit. Stiles, through the thick silence between them, feels quite literally like he might be walking into the best moment of his life— a concept which is emphasized when Lydia totally forgoes the front seat and goes to sit in the back.

Her legs are a little spread as he climbs into the car behind her, uncharacteristically so. Lydia's been crossing her ankles since she was in elementary school, which is how he knows that the flash of panties he sees as he's clambering into the car is completely purposeful. Lydia pounces on him as soon as he gets into the backseat, though, and his mind suddenly goes blank as she runs her tongue over his bottom lip, no part of her hesitant. Lydia kisses him like it's her right, her entitlement, like she's simply taking what already belongs to her. As she kisses him, she rakes her fingers through his hair. Stiles moans, moving his hand onto her knee, then up her thigh, curious to see if she'll let him get closer to the heat between her legs.

She does. In fact, she grips his hair harder, fluttering her tongue against his bottom lip one last time before she slips down to his neck, fluttering kisses along it, her hand on her shoulder. She seems content to simply sigh against him, working a hickey just underneath his ear while Stiles slides his hand boldly under her shirt, squeezing the lacy fabric of her bra.

"So," Lydia says breathlessly, pulling back. "For your next lesson, I'm going to teach you how to make a girl come." His fingers still as they touch her nipples. His eyebrows twitch.

"I don't know h—"

"It's okay," she replies soothingly. "All I need is for you to be hard and then it's… it's perfect." His cheeks splotch red because, yeah, that was never going to be a problem when his hands were on Lydia Martin's tits. "Just follow my lead, okay?"

"Yeah," agrees Stiles, half-insane and not even certain about what he's agreeing to.

"Good," murmurs Lydia. "Move forward for me, okay?"

He settles into the middle seat, slouching a little so that he can sit up, which would normally be uncomfortable except for the fact that Lydia reaching down to touch his dick over his lacrosse shorts is, like, ridiculously distracting. When she moves to straddle his hips, she lets out a small gasp as his dick finds her warm center, pressing into it in the right place.

"'s that okay?" he asks, a little bleary as Lydia rubs against him.

"It feels good, Stiles." The words are whispered into his neck. She's buried herself there, anchoring herself on his shoulders as her nose and mouth brush the skin in the juncture between his shoulder and neck. "You smell like sweat. It's so good."

Her words sound almost hysterical, and his hips twitch, causing his cock to slide upwards from the place that Lydia has been rubbing against. She cries out in shock, biting down on his skin, her hands gripping his shoulders harder. When she tries to readjust herself back to the original position, to take it slow, Stiles doesn't let her, cupping her ass under her skirt to position her in the place that had made her make that noise. He bucks up into her, hard, fast, his stomach muscles clenching as he tries to get Lydia to fall apart on top of him.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," he chants. "Fuck, you're  _perfect_."

She finally removes her face from his neck to look at him, pressing her forehead against his so that she can look at him. Lydia takes a steadying breath before speaking, her voice trembling in the quiet car.

"So, this, right here, isn't the only position you can do this in," she informs him shakily. "You can… you can be on top of her, between her legs, rubbing up against her. You can b-be lying down so that she can r-ride your cock while you match her movements. She can tease you by rubbing herself against your thigh or on your stomach."

"God I… I think I'm gonna come, Lydia. I'm gonna come."

"You could… you could stand behind me. Press me against a wall and just… spread my legs and rub against me. Pin my hands to the door. Make me take it. You could do that lying down, too. Like if you were spooning me and w-we were in bed and you were about to slide inside of me, you could just rub against me and it would be incredible."

"What else?" he asks desperately. "What else, Lydia?"

"You could slide your dick between my breasts and rub it and… and I could stroke your thighs and ass and j-just watch you and want to touch you so bad… just get wetter and wetter for you until all I need is your mouth on me."

He spills into his shorts a moment later, hot and twitching against her as he groans. Lydia watches him through it, seeming fascinated, her hand diving for his cock to reposition him so that he's pressing his head against her entrance over her panties as he comes. Her fingers slide into her panties, rubbing her clit until she comes on top of him, her whole body freezing and shuddering.

Watching Lydia come isn't like the movies, or like porn. She's quiet and internal and her eyes don't flutter shut, they screw up, her mouth clamped closed as she arches her back slightly, hand hitting the roof to steady herself.

When she opens her eyes, he's looking at her. There's no apology in his expression. He can't muster it.

"So," Lydia says raggedly. "That's… that's dry humping. It's not the classiest, but it'll do in a pinch."

"Right," agrees Stiles. "Thanks for the, um, lesson."

"No problem." She's recovering faster than he can, sliding off of his lap and attempting to flatten her hair back down. "So. Would you mind giving me a ride home?"

* * *

Stillness has never come easily to Stiles.

He's always thought that Scott might be the most still thing in his life. Being friends with someone for that long is more like a brand— Scott is a tattoo on his soul in the shape of bean bag chairs, video games, and werewolf fangs that are white against the night. But Lydia is a tattoo as well, carved from years of silence, of watching, of learning what it meant to wait and what it was to feel so deeply in his heart that he was  _right_ even though he knows he must be wrong.

So when she'd asked him if she could sketch him, he'd said yes because there's always been something so still about Lydia. It's this weird, meek acceptance of whatever he feels for her, but it's  _steady_ , always beating at his throat. When her pencil is scratching across paper, her face contorted in concentration, Stiles is stable. He remains perfectly still on the window seat in Lydia's bedroom, not even his foot tapping up and down— and that's  _saying_ something, because Coach had almost kicked him out of a PSAT preptest last semester for drumming his fingers too loudly.

"Stop staring."

Lydia's voice is at ease when she says it; unconcerned, really, merely pointing out a fact.

"I thought I was supposed to hold my pose."

"And you just happened to pick the pose that involved you staring at me."

"And you just happened to not mind for the past twenty minutes."

There's a wry amusement to his voice, something that Stiles doesn't try to keep out of it. Every time Lydia's eyes had flickered up to meet his, the dimples on her cheeks had become slightly more pronounced. Stiles knows what that feels like under the palms of his hands now, and it makes his lips twitch too. He'd kissed a smile onto her cheeks in the back of his car during lunch period earlier that day, driving two miles away from school before Lydia decided she didn't want to wait anymore.

"Touché, Stilinski," comes Lydia's reply, and he notices how soft it is— can't really help it, given the tilt of her head and the unexpected warmth when she says his name.

There's more silence as Lydia continues to sketch his likeness, lapsing back into her own world as she traces his frame with her pencil. It's not until her eyes find his again that there is a notable shift in her disposition. Lydia starts to sketch. Frowns. Erases. Starts again. Frowns. Erases. She looks back up towards his face, searching, and suddenly seems to be shaken out of her reverie.

Lydia puts down her pencil. Watches him for another moment, still steady, still thoughtful.

"Stiles," she begins carefully. "What exactly have you  _done_?"

"Specific," he says jokingly. Lydia wrinkles her nose.

"I mean… what types of sexual encounters have you familiarized yourself with?"

There's a sort of determination in how unrattled Lydia is. She lifts her chin and delivers her words to him in an easy, placid tone. Meanwhile, Stiles' heart picks up speed. Usually the question would be mortifying, but he remembers the way her tits had moved in the back of the jeep when she had been fucking herself over him; the way he had realized, afterwards, that she had changed her phrasing from "he" to "me."

He's suddenly feeling very good about his chances.

"Most of them involve my right hand."

"Okay," replies Lydia. "What about someone  _else's_ right hand?" She pauses. "Or, for that matter, a left hand."

Stiles chews on his bottom lip.

"Yeah. Um, no."

Lydia continues to look contemplative.

"Has anyone ever sucked you off, Stiles?" she asks curiously.

Suddenly, the pose they're in feels too intimate. Lydia is leaning forward on her chair, her chin resting on her closed fist, her eyes fixed steadily on him.

"Lydia." His voice is strained, and she's just leaning  _closer_ , like she doesn't understand that the Lydia tattoo inside of him is burning painfully against his ribs.

"I want to," says Lydia, bold, her eyes skating from his mouth to his chest. They slide back up to his face. "I want to do that to you."

He blinks. Clears his throat. When her hand begins to rub lightly up his thigh, moving closer and closer to his crotch, Stiles gets hard faster than he ever has in his life.

"Oh god," he moans, and Lydia laughs quietly.

"I haven't even done anything yet," she murmurs kneeling on the floor in front of him and tilting her head up to kiss him. Stiles shifts positions, so that Lydia is lying between his legs, stretching to kiss him. He's so focused on the brush of her tongue against his that he doesn't notice her popping the button on his jeans and slowly dragging the zipper down until she's already done it. "I like these."

"The— what?"

"These jeans," Lydia clarifies, smoothing her palms over the red fabric. "Your ass looks good in them."

"First my fingers, then my ass," teases Stiles. "The rave reviews keep pouring in."

"Your eyes." Her serious voice is dissonant against the tone he'd taken with her. "The way you stare at me."

 _Maybe_ , Stiles thinks, and then pushes it down as Lydia's fingers hook onto his belt loops, tugging at his jeans. His mind scrambles to give something back, something to let her know how grateful he is that she's offering him all this when she owes him none of it.

"Your hair," he says hurriedly. Lydia pauses with her hand on his dick, looking up at him. "Your ass. And... and the way your voice sounds when you say something that you know is so smart it goes over the head of everybody in the room."

She breathes out through her nose, staring up at him. Then she's got him out of his boxers and is holding back a smirk at how hard he is and Stiles is letting out a choked grunt as a warm, wet mouth engulfs his dick for the first time. His eyes snap shut, squeezing tight as his fingers dig into his palms, and he's trying not to make any noise but there's this small, red haired girl whose head is bobbing up and down his cock and rubbing her thumb in circles against his upper thigh.

Stiles is so out-of-his-mind that he barely even notices her pull off, standing up and taking his hand, pulling him back towards the bed. He has to waddle a bit in his jeans, but Lydia doesn't seem to mind, giggling as he topples over her and instinctively presses his mouth to hers. For a moment, his brain short circuits as he registers the fact that Lydia's lips had just been on his cock. Then his hips shudder upwards, sliding against the thin, wet pair of panties that Lydia is wearing under her skirt, and the shiver that rocks through his body is enough to make Lydia whimper too.

She wiggles out from underneath him as Stiles kicks his pants the rest of the way off, eyes clamped on Lydia as she moves to the side and bends over him again, taking him back in her mouth. He watches as she gathers her hair over the shoulder opposite him, so that he can watch himself slide back and forth between her lips. Every once in awhile, she makes a quiet, choking noise that has Stiles desperately trying not to buck up into her.

It's in a haze that Stiles feels his palm trace down the curve of Lydia's bare ass, noting the way smooth skin slides underneath his hand. He isn't quite sure what he's even trying to do until suddenly he finds the warmest part of her center. Then he pushes his fingers underneath the material of her panties and slides one of them inside of her body.

Lydia's moan of approval sets Stiles so close to the edge that he stops moving his finger in an attempt to focus himself on anything other than what they're doing. As he tries desperately not to come, he rubs his finger absently inside of Lydia, acquainting himself with the feeling of her walls. She's silkier than he'd thought she'd be, and  _tight_. When Lydia's fingers circle Stiles' wrist, he knows she wants another finger, but he can't even imagine that— can't imagine how she's going to take his dick when she's squeezing his index finger desperately.

When he adds his middle finger, Lydia cries out around his dick, taking her mouth off of him and resting her head on his abdomen. He doesn't want to ask her if it feels okay, because he knows it does, so instead he just strokes her hair away from her sweaty forehead and watches as her mouth falls open.

"Fuck, Lydia," pants Stiles into the open air, finding his voice in Lydia's inability to speak. "You look so fucking hot. Can't believe this, Lyds, you feel so good."

The sound of his voice seems to remind Lydia of what they're doing, and it's with another, longer moan that she lifts her head off of his stomach and chokes herself on his dick, taking him deeper than she had before.

Stiles comes in her mouth an embarrassingly short time later, unable to help the way he chases the warmth of her throat with his hips. He can feel her swallowing around him, and for one, stupid moment, Stiles wants to tell her that he'd do anything for her.

Instead, he waits until Lydia has neatly wiped her mouth before he pulls her to him, trapping her in what can only be described as a bear hug. At first, her body is stiff against his. Then Lydia melts into him, nuzzling against his collar. Her leg hitches up over his hip, her mouth finds its way to breathe hotly against his neck, and for some reason, it occurs to Stiles that this, right here, is  _messy._ They're messy in a way that is more steady, more sturdy, more calming than watching Lydia draw him.

"Hey," Stiles says when he finally finds his voice. His hand slides down her body, finding her sopping wet center. Slowly, he slides his fingers back into her. He moves them around without purpose, simply stroking the smoothness of her skin. Lydia squirms. "You're gonna let me do that to you too, right?"

* * *

Lying to Scott is almost never on Stiles' list of things to do.

First of all, and most importantly, because Stiles loves Scott and never wants to have to withhold any information from him. If that means telling Scott that he'd had a sex dream about Ursula the Sea Witch last night, so be it. Secondly, because Scott can totally tell when Stiles is lying to him, something he'd learned the hard way. It's not an experience Stiles would like to repeat again. But the third reason, and the most relevant one most of the time, is that when Stiles  _does_ lie to Scott, it means he's protecting him. It means he's guarding his best friend from something that his best friend shouldn't have to know. And Stiles, in the past year, has sort of redefined his life's purpose to be about protecting Scott.

Today, the reason he's lying to Scott is mostly to protect. Because how do you tell someone, when they ask what you're doing this weekend, that the girl who you're relatively certain is the love of your life is taking you to her lakehouse so that the two of you won't be interrupted while getting it on? Especially because the girl who was the love of Scott's life is currently six feet under, which, oh yeah, is all Stiles' fault. So, really, he shouldn't be preparing for a weekend of hooking up with Lydia, and Scott should, instead, be preparing for a weekend of hooking up with Allison.

That's the way the universe should've intended it. Stiles doesn't really know what happened. Doesn't know how much is his fault.

"Just hanging out with my dad," Stiles had said, shrugging. "He wants me to do chores."

And if his current position of lying on Lydia's bed with his tongue laving her nipple is a chore, Stiles is more than willing to set up a sticker chart.

"You're procrastinating," comes Lydia's breathy voice, somewhere above Stiles. "Stop procrastinating."

"Foreplay is  _not_ procrastinating," Stiles argues, slightly obstinately considering the fact that Lydia's the one telling him to get a move on. And, yeah. Yes please.

"Technically what you're about to do is foreplay." Her voice is less breathy now; more in control. "And it's for  _me,_ by the way, and I'm telling you to get on with it."

"Why?" teases Stiles. His finger sneaks under her dress, toying with the band at the side of her panties. "Got a hot date?"

There's a strong break of insecurity in his voice. It's not something he can help, even though he wishes he could. A part of Stiles just knows that there's no reason for Lydia to be here with him except  _pity_. That it could be anybody's tongue tracing the mole on the side of her left breast right now, and the fact that it's his is insignificant.

He'd gone in knowing that. He'd also gone in knowing that it would hurt. But, god. If he gets to do this to her even once in his life, he's going to do it  _right_. He's gonna learn how to fuck her like he loves her, because that's what Lydia has always deserved.

Lydia sighs, taking his cheeks between her hands and lifting his head up to look at her.

"That head of yours is making this a bigger deal than it has to be."

A small smile grows across Stiles' mouth.

"Ha. Head."

Lydia groans loudly as she drops her head back against the pillow, and the bed shakes with their laughter. There's something absurd about how comfortable it is to kiss her; to know that his mouth is about to be on her and to still be able to joke with her. He's lying between her legs, thumb rubbing her hip, eyes incapable of not smiling.

It's strange that his favorite part of right now isn't the fact that she's topless or the way her hair is a shock of red against the white sheets or the fact that he's about to have unlimited access to her body. His favorite part of right now is how content Lydia looks, how sleepily awake she is as she stares down at him.

"Are you sure you're ready?"

It isn't insecurity that makes her ask. It's affection, her fingers combing through his hair. Stiles can hear it in her voice and feel it in her gaze, and it's not the first time he's had the distinct impression that she's trying to protect him.

He swallows. Nods.

"Yeah. Yeah, I just… okay." Stiles awkwardly crawls a bit lower on the bed until he's face to face with the blue scrap of fabric that is currently the only thing covering Lydia. "How do you wanna do this?"

"Preferably successfully."

"No, I mean… under the covers, over the covers? Should I totally close the shades or keep them slotted open? Should I leave your underwear on or—?"

"Stiles," interjects Lydia. "Stiles, it's your first time trying this. I'm not expecting you to be perfect. It's okay. I promise."

He blinks. Licks his lower lip. Then slowly runs his hands down the side of her body, tracing her skin with his palms and fingers. When he finally reaches her panties, he hooks his fingers into them and tugs them down her legs, his breathing becoming more ragged as she shifts her legs up to help him, slipping out of the panties.

It's sort of like he expected it to be and sort of anticlimactic. He's fingered her before, but it's never been like this. In a way, he'd been expecting a full-blown fourth of July parade to blow through the room the first time he saw Lydia completely naked, stretched out in front of him. And the reality is a queen sized bed on a Saturday afternoon, hanging out with one of his favorite people in the world and preparing to make her feel good.

Stiles wants to do that more than anything. He wants to make her feel good. When he touches her pink folds, his fingers slipping over her soaking wet skin, he feels a sense of safety that is akin to bundling up under his covers in the middle of a snowstorm. Lydia twitches, sensitive and ready, but Stiles slides his index finger inside of her, then his middle figure and watches them gather her wetness, warm and sticky and for  _him_.

He sucks in a breath. Ducks his head lower. Then looks back up.

"Any last advice for me?"

He can see a shadow of exasperation on Lydia's face before she schools her features back to patience.

"Mhm," Lydia replies, deadpan. "I actually made a powerpoint presentation for you about how to eat me out."

His mouth slides open.

" _Really_?" whispers Stiles, his fingers stilling momentarily inside of her. Lydia tilts her head to the side, lips pursing at the absurdity.

"Stiles.  _No_ ," she says. "Just do it already, will you?"

And without thinking about it, without making the conscious decision to do it, he lifts his hand and slaps her pussy, palm landing over her clit. Lydia cries out, her eyes squeezing shut in reaction as her head tips back. When she looks back down, both of them seem a little shocked.

But her cheeks are pink, her eyes wide, and her teeth are scraping her bottom lip almost shyly. And right then, Stiles decides to own it.

"Stop being so bossy," he says, voice low and rough.

Then his mouth is on her, no longer hesitant or tentative. He licks around her first, learning her folds, what she tastes like, what it feels like when his tongue presses just above his fingers as they slide in and out of her entrance. He gathers as much of her on his tongue as he can and swallows her down. There's an instinct telling him that he'll get to keep the memory longer the more of her he takes inside of himself.

Lydia's knees squeeze hard around his head for one mindless moment, so that he can't hear anything and can't see anything; the only senses he has are the ones touching her, tasting her, smelling her. Then Stiles' teeth nudge gently against her clit, followed by a soothing tongue, and Lydia's legs fall completely open as she gasps.

It's the most rewarding moment of his life. Possibly more rewarding than all the kill screens he's ever reached. Combined.

Lydia's body slides further down the wall, her head and shoulders against the pillows now as her legs open wider for him. In a way, Stiles almost misses the sensory depravation— the way the only thing in the world was him and Lydia. True, he's terrified of drowning. But not drowning in Lydia.

Not becoming lost in  _Lydia_.

One glance up at her tells him that speaking, asking for her to trap him again, would knock her out of the trance she's in. She's got her eyes closed, her mouth open, and her right hand on her tit, twisting and teasing her nipple.

He lets her be, choosing instead to wrap his lips around her clit and begin sucking. His nose is buried in her, and he can't  _breathe_ , but something about it makes his hips shift desperately against the bed. His cock is aching as he buries his face in her, feeling the satisfaction of being alone in the world with Lydia Martin. He only comes up for air when his lungs burn for it, inhaling in short, gasping spurts before his mouth is back on her clit and his tongue is teasing it feverishly.

Stiles had been expecting Lydia to give instructions or shudder out his name like she does sometimes. Instead, in the occasional moments when he opens his eyes to look up at her, he sees someone who is lost to the world. Lydia's brain is silent; the noises she's making come from her chest, from her throat. Her fingers are wrapped around the white sheets now, her breasts shifting up and down with frenzied breaths. She's open and sweet and  _safe_.

He moans into her, sucking harder as his jaw aches, and it's too fucking much, the way she squeezes around his fingers, the way he's gonna figure out how to make her squeeze around his cock someday in that same way. Stiles comes with his dick rubbing against the bed, his jaw aching with effort, and his lungs gasping for air.

The bed shakes under him, and Stiles' groans vibrate against Lydia's body. He's still hard, his bones are aching, and his heart is pounding in his chest.

"Stiles." When Lydia speaks for the first time, it's desperate. "Stiles. Inside of me.  _Please_." He slides a third finger into her but Lydia's sob of pleasure is followed quickly by another one of protest. "No. More."

"Lydia—" They stare at each other. She's so close to the edge, and there's wetness in her eyes now, tears from frustration and tension and from being unresolved—  _unsolved_. "You said not yet."

His voice is strained when he speaks, because yeah, he knows what she said. But he also knows what he wants.

"I don't want to go slow anymore." Her voice wavers a little when she says it. She slides lower on the bed, flat on her back. He moves upwards to meet her, nose brushing against hers as all of his pretenses fall away. "I want you inside me. I want to feel it, Stiles,  _please_."

Nothing in his head makes sense.

"This was supposed to be about you," Stiles argues, scrambling.

"No," Lydia says, suddenly seeming upset. She grips his chin, hard, forcing him to look at her. "This was always about  _you_."

"Okay," he huffs out in a breath. "Okay, did you bring…?"

It's almost impossible to finish the question because he's never pictured himself asking it. Daydreaming about sex with Lydia has been something he did since middle school, but it wasn't the real stuff. It was flashes of kissing her shoulder; what she would look like lying between his sheets; imagining how it would feel to be inside of her.

"No." Lydia swallows. "Because I thought I might do this and I didn't want…" She trails off, smiling a little bit at the absurdity of it. "I just wanted you to be okay." She hesitates. "Did you?"

His answer is the same as hers, but slightly less innocent. Driving up to the lake house had been about eating her out, not having sex, which he had been more than okay with because he had known that sex would mark the end of this whole thing. As soon as they slept together, the job would be done and they'd go back to being friends.

"No."

She considers this for a moment. Then she raises her pinky, curving it so that he can hook his around hers.

"Do you trust me?"

He links their pinkies without hesitation.

"Yes."

A few breathless moments later, she's got his boxer-briefs on the floor and is carefully guiding him to her entrance.

"Just a little bit," she coaches, hand on his cheek. "I just want to feel you."

He pushes into her in the most frustrating, teasing way as he slides his tip against her entrance. It can't feel satisfying, but Lydia doesn't seem to mind as she cries out like she's startled. He's not far enough to reach the spot that makes her legs start to shake, but he rubs up against a place just inside of her, straining not to surge deeper.

" _God_ ," he gasps.

Lydia's hand slides from his cheek to his shoulder, fingers rooting into his skin.

"That's so good, Stiles," she murmurs, digging into him with her nails. The way they pierce his skin doesn't burn as much as the scorch of her walls around his cock. "I want you to fuck me so it hurts afterwards. That's what I think about. I think about feeling you inside of me even when you're not there anymore."

When she comes around the head of his dick, it feels like she's pulling him deeper inside of her.

Stiles fights against the tide, struggles not to get closer, not to love her harder than he already does.

But he slips out of her and she sucks the taste of herself off of his cock and he comes in her mouth knowing that he'd lost the battle a molotov cocktail, a locker room floor, and a red string ago.

* * *

Stiles could get used to waking up with the taste of Lydia on his lips.

He's alone in her bed, the side that Lydia had slept on still rumpled. It's cold, and with a small grunt of satisfaction, Stiles turns onto his stomach and snuggles into her pillow. He licks his lips and lies there, splayed out diagonally across the cool sheets.

It's quiet except for the pitter-patter of rain against the roof— Stiles can't even hear Lydia moving downstairs. Figuring that's a sign that he should check and make sure she hadn't completely abandoned him in her home after he had, y'know, stuck it in her last night, Stiles rolls out of bed and shuffles across the carpet in his socks and sweatpants.

Trepidation settles in his gut as he thumps down the stairs, keeping his eyes peeled for Lydia. She isn't in the living room, or the kitchen, or the library tucked at the corner of the house. Stiles is just starting to feel like he's legitimately been abandoned when his eyes catch a light on in the boathouse. Squinting, he moves closer to the window, peering across the yard. He can just make out the small shape of Lydia where she sits in the boathouse, her knees pulled against her chest, a book resting atop them.

He opens the door, meaning to call out to her, and finds himself shivering in the cold February air. He's in his pajamas, and it's earlier in the morning than he'd realized, and he can't imagine Lydia's very comfortable right now. Making a split-second decision, Stiles goes around the house, gathering the necessary supplies before he opens the door again and sprints into the rain towards Lydia.

"Hey," he gasps, shaking water out of his hair as he finally bursts through the white door three minutes later. She looks up, startled, but relaxes when she sees that it's him. "What are you doing out here? How are you not freezing your ass off?"

Lydia shrugs.

"I think you mean my  _cute little_ ass."

He frowns at her, caught off guard.

"What?"

"Sophomore year, remember?" asks Lydia, placing her bookmark in her book and closing it neatly. "I have a perfect memory."

"That can't be good for me," Stiles says, tugging a blanket out of his backpack. He'd crammed in a few blankets and as many decorative pillows as he could after shaking out all the shit in the bottom. Now he drapes a blanket over Lydia's shoulders and gets to work, putting another blanket on the ground next to her before setting the pillows on top of it. "Do you remember the time in sixth grade when I fell down when I was skateboarding past you at recess?"

"No, but I  _do_  remember the time you slammed into a mailbox when my car was passing you on the street," she informs him. Stiles freezes. "Eighth grade. Not your year."

"At least my hair was at it's best."

"You and Ashton Kutcher both." Lydia watches as Stiles drapes a third blanket over her lap, wrinkling her nose as it settles on top of her book. "What are you doing?"

"Making a blanket fort," he tells her. "Unsuccessfully, but you don't have any chairs out here so I'm just doing my best."

"I don't think anyone's ever made me a blanket fort before," Lydia muses happily. She watches as Stiles grabs one last blanket, tugging it over his shoulders. He moves to sit next to her and is surprised when she scooches forward instinctively, leaving space for him to crawl in behind her. Lydia, for her part, doesn't seem to notice his hesitation as she picks up a pillow that he'd placed next to her and hands it to him.

"I'll make you a better one another time." Carefully, Stiles places the pillow against the wall of the boathouse and sits against it, placing his legs on either side of Lydia. She yawns as she settles into him, her back resting against his chest. There's this weird, awkward moment during which Stiles doesn't know where to put his arm, but then he's swallowing his nerves down and placing it around her stomach and hoping that Lydia can't feel his heart rocketing against his chest. "So what are you doing out here?"

Lydia rubs her lips together before she answers, hesitating.

"I used to come out here with my dad when it was raining," she says finally. "We'd stay at the house for a week every summer, when I was really little. And on rainy days, he and I would come out here because he didn't like being cooped up in the house with mom and grandma."

"What did you guys do?"

"Read, I guess." Lydia shrugs. "I had these workbooks of math problems that my parents used to buy me to keep me entertained. So my father would be on his laptop doing work and I would be doing algebraic equations with magic markers."

It shifts over Stiles just then, hitting him aggressively.  _Oh,_ he thinks.  _I'm in love with this girl._ But he doesn't say that. Instead, he moves some of Lydia's hair over her shoulder and places his chin on her temple.

"My mom used to let me and Scotty strip down and go have mud fights in the rain when we were little." She laughs out loud at that, her head tipping back against his collarbone. He has the desperate desire to make her do it again. "And, oh god, I had these fuckin' awful yellow boots that my mom thought were adorable."

"I bet they were."

"I distinctly remember burning all the pictures, so you'll definitely never know," he says jokingly.

"That's too bad." Lydia's voice is quiet. "I'd like to see that."

He thinks about her pinky wrapped around his and the implication of "best friends" that twinkles in her eyes, then weighs it against her begging to feel him yesterday afternoon— measures it against Lydia letting him inside of her just for a moment with nothing between them.

"Lydia," he says hesitantly. "Yesterday you said… well, you said it was for  _me_."

From the way her back stiffens against his chest, he knows she knows what he's referring to. He wonders if she had suspected he would ask about it eventually. He wonders if he's asking too soon.

"You said you wanted—" she begins, oddly defensive. Stiles cuts her off.

"I know, but then  _you_ said—"

"I know." Then her voice softens. "I know what I said."

Something burns inside of Stiles' stomach, something full of uncertainty and the possibility of regret. He shouldn't have messed with Lydia and  _sex_ — not this, not when he knew exactly how it was going to end. And Lydia Martin is worth more than that ending. The fact that he's loved her for this long and never figured out how to stop just proves that she's worth more than that.

Just when Stiles is about to open his mouth, Lyda continues speaking.

"It's just… sex  _matters_ to you."

He instantly begins to splutter in protest, which feels wrong almost as soon as soon as he starts.

"It's sex, everyone wants sex, it's just one of those fundamental things that everyone, you know—"

"But you've never  _had_ sex," Lydia points out, sounding frustrated.

"Uh, yeah. I had a buzz cut instead."

She chuckles in agreement, then smacks her hand over her mouth like she isn't sure if she is allowed to do that.

"That doesn't matter, Stiles. Whether you want it to or not, sex means something to you, okay? Sex matters to you. And it never mattered to me."

He only figures out how right she is because of the way Lydia's words sting. His whole body seems heavier suddenly, as if he's just remembered the weight of the loss that Lydia often makes him forget he's carrying.

"And that's why you decided to… prolong this."

The rain that beats down against the water next to the boathouse isn't loud enough to drown out the harshness of Stiles' words. There's an emptiness that even he doesn't recognize, even after spending so much time with himself.

"No," admits Lydia. "No, that was… selfish."

In just a moment, his heart begins to slide upwards again. His stomach aches in a more hopeful way.

"Hooking up with me was selfish?"

"I feel sick. When I think about my first time," Lydia clarifies. Stiles' breath catches in his throat. He waits. "It's like… it's like watching a moment from someone else's life. It's like watching the beginning of Titanic when everyone is getting on the boat and you want to warn them to walk off of it but obviously you can't because all of them are going to die and you can't do anything about it. It's— god, it's like the feeling I get when a scream is about to build up and I'm starting to realize that somebody's going to die. Just... the fact that I was this fourteen-year-old girl who had sex with her boyfriend because his older friends from lacrosse camp were talking about it with him and she didn't want him to get bored?" Lydia pauses. Winces. " _I_.  _I_  didn't want him to get bored."

The fact that she isn't looking at him hurts almost more than her words do; hurts almost more than thinking about small, scared fourteen-year-old Lydia giving herself away to Jackson while Stiles and Scott were doing stupid shit like biking into trees and masturbating into socks. But she's telling him this, she's giving him this, and Stiles Stilinski has always wanted to protect Lydia Martin, but now it burns through his veins more than ever in a way that feels more like responsibility than it does love. Protecting Lydia isn't something he needs to do because he's got a thing for her, or because she's been letting him kiss her lately. Protecting Lydia is something he needs to do because sometimes she forgets to protect herself, and she deserves someone to remember for her.

Protecting Lydia is something he needs to do because she does the same for him without even realizing it.

"You don't want to be part of a bad memory."

"I don't want  _you_ to have a bad memory." It's the first time she turns to look at him, leaning against him less so that she can see him. "You deserve better than that. You deserve better than—"

A feeling tells him that she's about to say 'me,' so Stiles shakes his head, cutting her off.

"You're not gonna be a bad memory for me, Lydia," he promises her. "No matter what. Seriously, you…" He raises one shoulder. "You're kinda one of my favorite people? Which you probably already know."

She smiles down at the water that sloshes next to them.

"You'll regret it eventually." One of her hands comes to cover his arm where it lies over her stomach, and she slowly runs her fingers across his sleeve, nails lightly dragging over his arm. "But I won't."

"Lydia—" starts Stiles, but she shakes her head.

"I don't want to talk about it anymore."

He nods obediently.

"Okay."

"I think I used to like rain. When I was little."

"Not anymore?"

"It rains too much in Beacon Hills."

Stiles chuckles.

"Yeah, it really does."

She turns to the side, burrowing into him more. Her nose lightly trails up and down his neck, and he feels her inhale as she buries her nose in the crook of his shoulder. Nervously, Stiles leans down to peck a quick kiss against the top of her head. His arms tighten around her body, pulling her into him, and Lydia sighs contently as she slides her hand under his sweatshirt, letting her fingers trace the skin on his back.

"But maybe rain isn't the worst," she says, sounding sleepy. Braver this time, Stiles kisses the top of Lydia's head again. He isn't expecting her to talk again, but she does, sounding more curious than anything else. "Or," Lydia starts, speaking slowly. "Or maybe nothing is the worst when I'm with you."

* * *

Stiles used to think that he wouldn't have insomnia if he wasn't always behind on his homework. It was an incredibly illogical idea, in hindsight, because insomnia was the effect, not the cause. At one point, he had gotten really good at procrastinating, so it had only made sense to start writing papers at three in the morning. At another point, Scott McCall had gotten bit by Peter Hale and suddenly his whole world was consumed by the monsters under the bed.

He knows now that getting ahead on homework isn't the cure-all for his sleeping habits. Which is why he normally stays in bed next to Lydia just until she falls asleep before he gets up and goes over to her desk to open his laptop and do his work. Her street is quieter than his, due to the long driveway, and with the rhythmic sounds of Lydia's breaths as his metronome, Stiles steadily makes his way through his assignments.

Tonight is an econ paper for Coach. He'd talked through the essay format with Lydia as she fell asleep, moving soothingly through paragraph one, two, three. She'd given him a few places in the book to look for the citations he needed, even though her eyelids had been fluttering closed at the time. He wants to tell her that he sees it, he sees the way she takes care of him too, that he would deck anybody who called Lydia Martin selfish. But it never comes up, and sometimes Stiles thinks that it's more his fierce defensiveness of her that makes him hyper-aware of the negative ways Lydia perceives herself. Like, maybe it doesn't need to be said at all.

But she'll stay awake with him too, when she knows he needs sleep. She'll stay awake with him when it's bad enough that Stiles won't be able to function without going to bed. She'll stay awake for him even when she doesn't want to.

The middle of paragraph four is giving him some trouble, and Stiles isn't sure if it's because Lydia's desk chair isn't comfortable or if he's just bored, as always, by anything having to do with Coach's subject. But he's just about to pull his hair up by the roots when he hears Lydia stirring in her bed, heavy, low breaths that make his stomach knot with anxiety. She's got her sheets twisted in her fingers and there are tears rolling down her cheekbone, creating a small pool on her purple pillowcase.

Stiles bolts out of the desk chair, sliding onto the bed with Lydia.

"Hey, hey, hey," he says, "Lydia, c'mere. Wake up. It's okay. Wake up." He gathers her into his arms, pulling her against him so that her tears soak his white t-shirt. He only knows that she's awake because she begins to cry harder, her fingers circling his arm, keeping him close to her. "It's okay," Stiles repeats, stroking her hair. "It's okay."

"The only other banshee I… I ever…"

"Shhh. I know, Lydia, I know. I'm so sorry. I know."

"I killed her."

"No. You didn't."

"I  _killed_ her."

Her voice is more severe now, and she dissolves into sobs. Somehow, he doesn't think she's just talking about Meredith anymore.

"You, Lydia Martin, are  _not_ a murderer." He says it so firmly, so confidently, that he can hear the hiccough in her crying as she registers his words. "You aren't a murderer. You didn't kill anyone. You care about saving lives  _so much_. And I know it's hard, but you do it anyways. You care. You're not a killer."

"No," she starts, but he cuts her off, hugging her tighter.

"I wouldn't be in this bed with you right now if I thought you were a killer."

"No," she says again, stubborn.

"Lydia, look at me." She keeps her face buried in his shirt. "Come on, Lydia. Look at me."

When she finally looks up at him, her eyes rimmed with red, he feels his heart dropping lower in his chest. She looks so small. He knows that they take turns protecting each other, but right now all he wants to do is be the one thing that's easy, the one thing that she can depend on without having to worry. He just wants to hide her away from all the things that hurt in this world.

But he can't hide her from her own head. Instead, he presses his lips against it, holding them there for a moment.

"It's not your fault," he murmurs against her forehead. The words tickle her skin. "It's not your fault."

She begins to cry again, harder, and he doesn't need to ask her what her nightmare was about— doesn't need to ask her to describe the vivid details that cause her to shake so badly, sometimes, that it jerks him awake. He kisses her temple instead, one side then the other, and then moves down to her nose, nuzzling it with his before pressing his lips to it briefly.

It crosses a line, he knows that, but at the same time, he can't bring himself to mind. For his part, it has the extreme potential to be humiliating later on. But Lydia doesn't seem to think it's out of the ordinary, so he continues on. She cries. He kisses her cheeks. Her fingers grip him harder. He kisses along her jaw, her chin. She shudders in his arms and he kisses her wrist, smelling leftover remnants from her perfume, his favorite scent in the galaxy. She says his name and it echoes through him like the beat of a drum, so he kisses her neck to the beat, gently tilting her head to the side so that he can reach the sensitive skin there and litter kisses across it.

"I got you," he tells her, fluttering his lips across her skin. "I'm not gonna leave you, okay? Not for anything."

"Okay." She shudders it out. "Okay. Okay."

Slowly, he lays her back against her pillow, sliding down with her. He places his head on her shoulder and Lydia absent-mindedly strokes his hair, hands still trembling slightly.

"Do you wanna go back to sleep?"

He expects her to answer the question, but she's silent for a long time, ignoring it. When she does speak, it's not what he's expecting.

"Would you still be okay with dying?"

Stiles blinks. His lashes flutter across her bare shoulder where her nightshirt has slipped down.

"No," he says quietly. "I wouldn't."

And, instantly, her body sags into the bed.

"You'll stay with me," she says, sleepy. "You'll stay."

"'Course," replies Stiles, smoothing her hair back from her forehead. "I'm not going anywhere, Lyds."

* * *

"Dad!"

"Stiles, thank god."

His dad's arms wrap around him as they hug each other tight. Stiles is trying to ignore the fear still beating in his heart. His dad, he knows, is savoring the moment, as he always is when they reunite. As much as Stiles' dad is the only real family he has left, Stiles is genuinely his dad's only family. Everybody else is gone, somehow.

Stiles has started thinking of himself as the person who sticks around. So, earlier today, when the gun had been pointing at his head and he'd been shaking, he'd thought of his dad, of his mom, of Lydia. Of leaving and being left. And then he'd made it, and all he wants to do right now is stay with them.

" _Stiles_."

He hears Lydia's relieved voice over every other voice in the crowd, turning around to see her running towards him. She crashes into his arms despite the blood covering his shirt, a small noise leaving her body as she wraps her arms around him and squeezes tight.

"Lydia," he murmurs back, pulling her so tight against him that he thinks her feet might be dangling above the ground.

She hugs him for longer than he's expecting, which just makes him want to hold her even more.

"You're covered in blood," she says, voice muffled by his shoulder. Stiles laughs.

"Yeah," he agrees, rubbing a hand down her back. "Gross, right?"

"No," is Lydia's response as she shakes her head, burrowing deeper into him. "You're  _safe_."

"I'm really glad you weren't here," he sighs.

"I'm not. I was  _worried_ about you."

Lydia tenses. Blinks. Stiles draws back to look at her, frowning.

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

"For… what?"

There's two bright red splotches on her cheeks, and Lydia's ponytail swings as she looks towards her shoes, knocking the wedges together while she hesitates.

"For…" She cuts herself off, swallowing uncomfortably. "You know."

"Hey. Lydia." His voice is soft, and maybe that's why she looks up at him. "You… you don't have to feel guilty about worrying about me, y'know." Lydia nods wordlessly, looking at him like she can't bring herself to not. "We're friends, remember?" He raises his hand and wiggles his pinky at her; Lydia breaks out into a smile.

"Right," she says, nodding. "Right."

Then there's a beat, and a breath, and she's hugging him again, still trembling a little in his arms.

Friends.

Sometimes they have the same bad days, sometimes they have the same good days, sometimes they feel off at different times. But through all of it, he picks up the phone when she calls. He says Allison's name when she needs him to; avoids it when she has to. Cooks her dinner when she forgets to eat and lets her do his homework when he can't stop staring blankly at the wall.

Friends.

Best friends.

* * *

"Stiles, I am  _not_  going to your lacrosse practice."

With her arms crossed her over chest, pushing her breasts together in a way that makes Stiles want to stick his head into his locker and moan, Lydia is almost intimidating, despite the tiny stature. But more intimidating than the glare she's giving him is the acknowledgement of the list floating around that has Lydia's name at the top.

"You will go to my lacrosse practice and you will sit there on the stands where I can see you and you will do your homework," he replies, shoving his books into his locker before whipping the door shut and ramming his shoulder against it. He locks the padlock, then slowly steps back, arms out as if ready to catch the door the second it springs open. When it remains closed, he smirks with satisfaction and pats his hand fondly against the bulging-open door.

"Stiles, over here," Lydia says, irked. He stands to attention, hitching his backpack over his shoulders as he looks down at her.

"Look. I feel like you keep forgetting this, so I'm gonna remind you, just for fun, that you are worth the second-most amount of money on the deadpool but you don't have any active powers. Like, the only person worth more is  _Scott_. And Scott has claws. And fangs. And a smile that tends to render people incapable of movement anyways so he barely needs those, to be—"

"You still can't tell me what to do!" The way Lydia interrupts him makes Stiles assume she's about to stamp her foot and straight-up pout at him.

"And yet," says Stiles, putting an arm around Lydia's back and beginning to herd her through the hallway. "You're gonna be at lacrosse practice sitting there in the stands where I can see you, doing your— I know this is familiar, I don't have to keep going."

"I can take care of myself."

"Well, sure," agrees Stiles, still guiding her through the hallway. "But why should you have to?"

He pats her on the shoulder, then speeds down the hallway, throwing her some finger-guns when he turns around to see her standing in the same spot he'd left her.

Stiles isn't at all shocked when three o'clock comes and goes and there Lydia is, seated on the bleachers, an astrophysics textbook settled across her knees. As if she feels his eyes on her, she looks up, meeting his gaze across the field. Stiles raises his hand, waving meekly, feeling like he's fifteen again and desperately craving Lydia Martin's attention.

But this time, she's waving back.

For the rest of practice, he feels an energy for lacrosse that he hasn't felt since before the nogitsune. He pants less as he runs across the field, he gets  _way_ closer to actually getting the ball, he purposefully fucks up because he likes the way Lydia smacks her hand over her mouth or chuckles. And he certainly can't help the way his eyes flick back to her, hopeful that she's watching.

His hope is well-founded, though. She always is.

* * *

The sheriff's station is deceptively quiet at night. When Stiles was a little kid, Melissa used to drop him off here so that he could sit with his dad in his office and quietly do homework while his dad filled out paperwork. It had seemed, to Stiles, like a normal place of business. His dad rarely had to get up and go out on calls when he was the sheriff— there were always deputies for that. The station had only started to seem cool to him when he was older, when he realized that the calls on the radio included the occasional dead body and unsolvable case.

At this point, Stiles would give anything to spend less time at his dad's work. He's gotten so good at giving concise statements, he has to find places to be sarcastic just to entertain himself. There isn't anything thrilling about being on the helpless side of things— not anymore. Not when he's at the sheriff's station at night  _yet again_ , watching Lydia massage her wrists where the cuffs had been pulled tight around the bone.

"You okay?" asks Stiles, but the words are starting to become meaningless. He wants something else, wants to say something that will capture "I'm sorry" and "I would do anything to make you feel better" and "if you died I would go out of my freaking mind" simultaneously. Instead, he meets her eyes and holds her gaze for as long as she lets him.

"I should be asking you that."

Perched on the arm of the couch, Lydia looks like she's ready to run from this darkened building. They're going to be here for at least another hour. It'll feel like longer. He gets wanting to run from the re-living. Stiles just hopes she doesn't want to run from him.

"Why?"

"You got punched in the face. You broke out of the chains. You almost got stabbed with a needle." She stops, waiting for him to speak. He doesn't. "You're scared of needles," Lydia prompts.

And Stiles laughs. Actually laughs out loud.

"Right. I forgot."

"You… forgot?"

"I wasn't thinking about it."

Lydia rises, tilting her head to the side as her eyes search his face.

"What were you thinking about?"

He's sitting on his dad's desk, doing his best not to overthink the concentration that tenses Lydia's features. Normally his fingers would be drumming against the wood, but he hasn't felt very fidgety in the past several hours. Hasn't felt like moving at all, in fact. There's something slow and sluggish tugging at his stomach, and he stays wrapped up in it, as if he's searching for the answers in the weight of his limbs.

"I wanted you to be okay." He doesn't say it with earnestness or energy. It's just dead weight, thrown to the floor in front of Lydia for her to do whatever she wants with it. It's not surprising, or new, or uncharacteristic. He wants her to be okay. He always wants her to be okay.

But Lydia's face softens even more, as though he's given her the world instead of a small, dirty pebble. One minute she's looking at him, the next she's standing between his legs and has taken his hands in hers, pressing her mouth against the fingers that curl in against his palm. When she releases him, he expects himself to pull away, but instead he follows the path of her neck up to her cheek, cupping it softly. Lydia tilts into him, closing her eyes, her lips just barely brushing against his palm.

Then she's kissing him, firm and insistent, as if she doesn't care whether or not he kisses her back. He does, and there's no relief there— just an uptick in intensity as Lydia stands on her toes and winds her arms around his neck. His hands grip her face a little too tight, as if confirming for himself that she is real and solid and here. His thumb presses against her pulse point. He's in love with her. He's in love with her.

When Lydia sighs, it sounds like his name. He slides his hands down to her hips, squeezing the bones, wanting her to hurt him, wanting to consume some of her ache.

They kiss until time stops, and then they keep on kissing, silent and ardent and he's  _consumed_  by her, like with each pass of her tongue against his there are little pieces of Stiles that are vanishing and becoming Lydia's. They kiss with no purpose, no ulterior motive, no lesson to learn. They kiss each other.

He finds her hand where it has gathered the front of his shirt and he unwinds her fingers so that he can link their pinkies together. He thinks it's possible that he didn't know how much he loved her until right now, which ultimately seems the opposite of possible because he had already thought he loved her too much before.

The sound of the door banging open causes Lydia to startle, jumping away from him, and Stiles looks up to see his dad standing in the doorway of the room, his face weary and exhausted. He doesn't seem to be surprised to find the two of them both slightly disheveled. He doesn't comment on Lydia's bee-stung lips or the pink on her cheeks. He just watches, eyes a little sad, as the two of them collect themselves.

"Hey," Stiles offers eventually, voice raspy.

"Hi, kids," replies his dad, moving into the room and setting his coffee mug down on the desk. "I'm gonna need to hear your statements one more time and then you can go home."

He's not. He's not gonna go home. He's gonna go to Lydia's because he loves her, because he can't be apart from her, because he was too selfish to not love her anymore. He's going to go to Lydia's because she's the best definition of home he's ever learned.

* * *

Three days later Scott asks if something has happened between Stiles and Lydia.

"It's just…" He looks at Lydia over Stiles' shoulder. "She's been staring at you a lot lately."

Stiles turns around to look at Lydia. She appears to be deep in conversation with Danny, her eyes nowhere near Stiles' face.

"You're imagining things," Stiles replies, knowing it's a lie. "Nothing new happened with me and Lydia."

It doesn't feel false because it wasn't new. Technically, they've kissed before. Technically, it wasn't a first. Technically, it's not supposed to be the most intense moment he's ever shared with her.

But when he fell asleep on the left side of her bed last night, he had drawn the memory around himself like a security blanket. And the softness of it, the gentleness of it, is the exact thing he knows Lydia has always been afraid of.

He wonders if she still is.

She's staring again.

* * *

"I'm  _bored_."

The announcement comes with an eyeroll from Lydia, whose only response is to turn up the volume on the television and square her jaw. On the television, the narrator's voice gets louder as he calmly discloses how little scientists truly know about the universe. There's a moment where Stiles gallantly attempts to stay still, and then his leg twitches on the couch and he's launched into another loud, frustrated groan.

"Just take out your phone or something," Lydia says, elbowing him hard in the side. "You said we could watch anything I wanted."

"I know, but I was hoping you'd pick, like, Indiana Jones. Or, like, porn."

"You made me watch three Indiana Jones movies in a row last week."

"And they stand up to repeat viewing."

"Stiles," complains Lydia. " _Three_. In a row. And you can't even get through this documentary."

"Have you  _seen_ Harrison Ford? He's fucking badass."

"I know enough badasses," replies Lydia, disinterested.

"Am I one of them?" he teases.

She cuts her eyes towards him.

"No. That's what I like about you."

"I don't… like, I don't know how to reply to that."

"You behave bravely because it's the right thing to do. Not because you're an archeology professor who somehow knows how to use a whip."

Her eyes are determinedly on the TV now, looking away from Stiles. He wonders if Lydia would have been able to deliver that line while meeting his eyes. She does this sometimes. Tells him things that reminds him of the fact that they're  _actually_ friends, not just two people who hang out together because they have to. It's something he might always feel insecure about, but then she turns towards him and the dimples on her cheeks are thrown into sharp relief and sometimes he thinks her eyes look lighter when they're focused on his face.

"You do too."

His voice is quiet, his fingers itching to reach for hers. He wants to tell her that half the reason he acts so brave is idiocy, but that's not really true. There's something else, something that he can never seem to shake— Lydia, lying in her hospital gown on the night of the winter formal, her eyes closed. Not being sure if they'd ever open again, even before he knew her as well as he knows her now? It had been enough to motivate him for months. And then she'd smile at him, or say something smart, or put herself at risk, and he'd get motivated all over again.

Stiles is pretty sure he'd be a way shittier person if it weren't for the existence of Lydia Martin.

"I think I learned it watching Allison. And Scott."

"Scott McCall and his hero complex." Envy curls in his chest, so ugly it makes his cheeks heat up with embarrassment. It's always there, but sometimes swallowing it down burns too much. He suddenly feels the need to explain himself. "It's pretty exhausting to constantly be surrounded by people who are better than you."

"I know," says Lydia, quiet.

He chortles, looking over at her in disbelief.

"You don't know."

"Stiles," she says sharply, "I  _know_."

He stares at her. She stares back. He feels the invincibility that comes with being seventeen and in love slither away like a snake in the grass, unseen and insignificant.

"Hey," Stiles says, his voice steely, "there is literally nobody better than you. No one."

The laugh that follows is a little sad.

"You can't possibly still think that."

"Okay, but I do. So."

"Just stop it, Stiles."

"Nobody. In Beacon Hills. In the state. In the country. In the world. On the pl—"

She cuts him off by pressing her lips against his, her fingers curling around the hair at the nape of his neck. The kiss is sloppier than the ones she normally gives him; deeper, somehow. When she pulls back, she rests her forehead against his and breathes while Stiles' brain scrambles to catch up to the moment.

"Thank you," Lydia runs her hand down his neck tenderly as she whispers against his lips. She waits a few moments to speak, her voice gets louder; confident again. "Now find something useful to do until this movie is over."

Find something useful to do. Well, he's got a paper to write for history class. But Stiles works far better under pressure, and it's not due for another day, so starting it now seems counterproductive, really. And he has to do some research for Scott to help with the whole "figuring out how to teach Malia not to randomly turn into a drooling, biting coyote" project, but that seems like it could wait. Something useful? While he's sitting in an empty house with Lydia Martin? Something  _useful_.

"I should probably study," he says, voice nonchalant.

"Okay," replies Lydia unassumingly. When Stiles unceremoniously drops to his knees and places his hands on her upper-thighs, spreading her knees, her gaze finally breaks from the television. "What are you doing?"

"Studying." He's smirking as he places a kiss on the side of her knee.

"Wh—?" Lydia starts, but he presses his mouth against the inside of her thigh, climbing higher with his lips until he can't reach anymore. Then his hands sneak under her ass and pull her closer to the edge of the couch, and when Lydia's legs simply fall open for him, Stiles hooks his arms around her upper thighs and rubs his nose lightly against her panties.

She's watching him carefully as he presses his mouth against the crotch of her panties, sucking at the wetness and laving his tongue over the same spots over and over again, teasing. He can feel her eyes on him, boring into him in a way that is intimate and breathless and somehow incredibly innocent. She's watching him like she's never seen his head between her legs before, which is not only untrue, but it's also strangely sweet.

He should be self conscious, but he isn't. In a way, he likes it. He likes the way she can't look away from him. He likes the way she holds her breath for him.

"Shouldn't you be focusing?" Stiles asks as she lifts her hips, helping him pull her panties off. "You're the one that wanted to watch this movie so bad." He licks her with the flat of his tongue. Lydia's hips jump. "Eyes on the screen, Martin. I'm trying to study, here."

* * *

It's funny how they take away Stiles' best friend, the mark on his soul, and all Stiles can think about is all the things that he never got to say to Scott. The loop that runs through his head at first is more efficient—  _how do we get them back, who do we need, how are we gonna get to Mexico, how much time do we have._ But eventually it's four o'clock in the morning and Stiles and Lydia are putting together medical supplies and the words start bubbling up and over, consuming his thoughts.

"Get out of your head," Lydia coaxes gently. He looks over at her, startled and just… sad. "We have a plan."

"We always have bad plans."

She grabs anesthetic and places it in the makeup pouch they're using.

"No. We always make it through."

"We don't know what we're  _doing_." For once, he can let himself be angry at her because he's angry at the world and he's scared and he doesn't want to be patient right now, even with Lydia.

"We don't," she admits. "But we're pretty good together. Don't you think?"

He can't look at her. Her can't stop moving. He can't stop until they get Scott back.

But Lydia reaches over and places her hand on top of his, and he  _knows_  her. Knows how hard it is. Knows how unnatural it is to be gentle like this, or to make any sort of first move towards their quiet, unspoken intimacy.

"We are," he replies heavily. "We're good together."

"So we'll save Scott." Lydia is so determined, he actually believes her. "We'll save Scott as long as we're together."

That's why he's willing to argue with Peter when he suggests that they start driving to Mexico.

"We can't. Not without Lydia."

He's not leaving without Lydia. He's not leaving her in Beacon Hills. He's not leaving her  _behind_ — where she can't save him and he can't save her. She's so fucking high-up on the deadpool. Sometimes he wakes up dripping sweat on her bedsheets and has to lie to her about why he's got tears pricking the corners of his eyes.

 _Not without Lydia._ Without the person who scares him the most. Who makes him smile the most. Who feels like his whole childhood, who feels like growing up, who feels like cold winter mornings of learning how to be in love with someone. How to love someone more than he loves himself.

Lydia, who smiles and makes his hands still. Who hates to sing but hums when she's washing dishes. Who makes him help her do her hair in the morning because she's so used to doing her hair with her mom that she isn't as good at doing it without a partner. Lydia, who has always felt like a partner, like his partner, and he is so grateful that she thinks of him that way too.

 _Not without Lydia_ , because his head is never without Lydia and he's not leaving it behind with her in Beacon Hills while his body goes to Mexico.

If she's in trouble, he is too. So no. Not without Lydia.

* * *

They all help Lydia throw a party for her birthday.

It mostly starts because everybody at the lunch table looks at Lydia with blank, horrified stares when she says that she isn't planning on throwing a birthday party. It's a reminder— a terrifying reminder, actually— of how much things have changed. Even Malia has the decency to look confused when she sees Scott looking confused.

"You always throw parties," he had pointed out, while Stiles had nodded emphatically next to him.

"But—" Lydia had started to say.

"I'd really like to see one," Kira had piped up hopefully.

Lydia had looked at the empty seat at the table where Allison should have sat. Where Isaac should have sat. Then she had mashed her lips together, nodded, and not eaten another bite for the rest of the lunch period.

There's something odd about the concept of normalcy. Like, right now Stiles is running around Lydia's house placing purple and silver balloons wherever he sees fit, and Scott is wrestling with fairy lights, and Malia is carrying a drink table in each hand, and Stiles thinks that Allison is going to walk out of the pool house and ask Lydia if she should start warming up the water now or if she should wait until guests arrive.

"Should I start warming up the water now, or should I wait until guests arrive?" Kira asks. Stiles' heart smashes.

It's been four months. Only four. Already four. Stiles looks in the mirror and sees that his cheeks aren't as hollow anymore. The dark circles under his eyes have vanished. He's gained back the weight that he'd lost when he was fading away. He has a new mattress now, which he uses most nights. Sometimes Lydia sleeps next to him. Sometimes he sleeps at her house. Sometimes he misses Allison so much that it makes him want to throw up, and sometimes it's just a persistent buzz that rings through his brain.

He has the nightmare where he gets her blood all over his hands, and when he wakes up, he thinks that he can still see it dripping onto the carpet.

"People are coming!" says Scott (fake) happily, elbowing Lydia in the side.

"The doorbell didn't ring."

He points to his ears with both hands.

"No, but these guys did."

It sounds like a stupid joke that his dad would make, but Stiles has never heard a joke sound quite so tired. It lands to silence. They all stare at each other as if they're preparing to walk back into battle.

"I'll get the door," Malia says, oblivious to the mood but aware of the four of them staring at each other. She shrugs and walks off, and Stiles turns to Lydia magnetically, as he always does. He takes a breath, hopeful, and smiles down at her.

"I think you look beautiful," he says. He doesn't know why he's nervous saying it. He'd been eating her out two hours ago to soothe her nerves.

But Lydia's shoulders relax, just for a moment. She reaches out and links her pinky with his. He can taste her lips on his tongue and suddenly it hurts so much that he feels like he's going to burst.

Stiles unlinks their pinkies on instinct, startling her.

"You gotta go greet your subjects," he says, covering it as quickly as he can. "They're waiting for you."

She walks away. He feels a tug at his naval trailing after her, like a string dragging on the ground, pulling him in Lydia's direction.

He likes her too much. It  _sucks_.

Stiles is used to fading into the background at parties like these. He'd been doing that since freshman year of high school— no matter who was throwing the party, he was always more of an observer. He'd been the skinny boy in the back with a buzzcut, clutching too tightly onto a red solo cup as if he were hoping nobody would take it away from him.

But Lydia's parties? Her parties were the holy grail of observing. He would go there  _specifically_ to observe, to study, to try to figure out exactly why his eyes were pulled towards her every time they were in the same room. If Stiles was ever going to figure out why he was so susceptible to her, he had always thought it might be at one of these parties, when Lydia's smile was the beam that illuminated everyone's path through her house.

Even now, when they're friends, it seems wrong to approach her at one of these things— they're so sacred to him; always have been. So he hangs back, making his home near one of the trellises, watching Lydia stride confidently in her nude heels and dark blue dress. All of it is so usual, so familiar, that Stiles forgets the pain, the tragedy, the loss. He just stands there and lets the uneventfulness of all of it sweep over him.

Until, of course, something that is  _not_ as usual happens. And he's going to admit that he'd been expecting something off, but it was more on the lines of a dark demon appearing in the middle of the party or, you know, Derek coming to yell at them for being teenagers. Something like that.

Instead, Stiles' brand of unusualness comes in the form of a blond girl in a pretty pink dress, a deceptively innocent smile on her face as she approaches him.

"You look like you need a drink," she says, handing Stiles a beer. He accepts it from her without considering the implications, eyes too busy lingering on the beachy waves in her hair. He likes it when Lydia wears her hair like that. She doesn't do it enough anymore. He wonders if Lydia likes it as much as he does.

"Thanks," he says, and the girl settles in next to him by the trellis with a somewhat satisfied smile, taking a sip from the beer in her other hand. They're silent for several moments, drinking amiably. Stiles isn't sure if he's supposed to say something to her or not. He watches Lydia pour Liam some punch.

"You look good, Stiles."

Seeing as he doesn't know her name, Stiles is taken aback that she knows his.

"Uh… thanks…?"

"Sadie," the girl says comfortably, then continues on as if him not having any clue who she is doesn't bother her one bit. "Everybody's been talking about it all year." Sadie smirks at him. "You walked in on the first day of school with this, like, long hair and I swear to  _god_ , it was all any of my friends could talk about."

Well there's a piece of information he hadn't been expecting to hear.

"That's… well, that's… um. Weird."

"Mhm," agrees Sadie. "It's the same thing that happens to girls, though, isn't it?"

"What is?"

"One day you aren't fuckable, the next day… you have boobs."

"I don't have boobs," Stiles promises, taking a swig of his beer with one eyebrow raised skeptically.

"You're hot," she clarifies. "That's what that means."

They're silent again while Stiles considers what she'd just said.

"So, does that mean… does that mean you think I  _am_ fuckable? As opposed to not being fuckable? Is that what you just said?" And, seriously, who the fuck says fuckable?

"I was waiting for you to catch on."

When she pulls his beer from his fingers and offers him a pink-lipped smile, he isn't expecting it.  _This_ is never what Stiles has done at Lydia's parties. Lydia's parties aren't for this. Lydia's parties are to watch her, to try to guess what she's thinking about, to imagine what he could say to her right in that moment that would dazzle her.

The wet neck of the bottle touches his skin when she wraps her arms around his shoulders, lifting her mouth to his. She tastes like beer and vodka, with the distinct tang of nicotine curled against her tongue. It's strange, and foreign to him. Not because he's never kissed anyone who was drinking or smoking before. But because the mouth that he brushes his tongue against isn't Lydia's mouth, and without realizing it, he'd become incredibly accustomed to what it felt like to kiss her.

Stiles pulls away, a little unsettled, but also a little curious. Isn't this what he and Lydia had been walking toward? Everything with Lydia feels so fuzzy and good and  _burnt_ , like when their skin slides together, something ignites. This. This isn't fuzzy. This is  _simplistic,_ almost in a fabricated sense, because he's standing at a party making out with a girl whose name he didn't know five minutes ago. And, as Stiles slides his hand down to her ass, he's able to focus. He can focus on what he's doing, what he's thinking, what he wants.

This girl doesn't sweep him up. But that also means she's safe.

It's because of how remarkably simple this is that Stiles is able to hear Scott's voice call out Lydia's name once, twice, three times.

He opens his eyes to see his best friend standing all the way across the patio, staring at the french doors with somewhat of a puzzled look on his face. Instinct tells Stiles to look upstairs towards Lydia's bedroom, where the lights flick on seconds later.

Stiles doesn't even think about it.

"I gotta go, Sally," he says absently, pushing the girl back gently. His eyes aren't on her long enough to check for a reaction— instead, Stiles shoves his way through the crowd of students, not caring who he pushes. Once he's in the house, he takes the stairs two at a time, his mouth set into a determined line.

If she saw and she ran away… if she  _saw_ …

He hasn't been one to dabble in "what ifs" since the two of them started this thing. But now they suddenly circle around his head, pecking insistently at his psyche.  _What if?_

Lydia is already facing the door when Stiles swings it open, pushing perhaps a bit too hard, as though he had been expecting it to be locked. She looks frazzled, her elegant curls seeming droopier than they had earlier in the evening.

"Stiles," she says, neither impressed nor surprised. "You followed me?"

"Wouldn't be the first time." It's a feeble attempt at a joke about his past obsession with her, but Stiles clears his throat awkwardly when Lydia doesn't smile. Instead, she crosses her arms over her chest and stares him down, not crossing the room or moving any closer to him.

"What type of conversation is this going to be?" asks Lydia, eyeing Stiles warily. He doesn't answer right away, and Lydia blinks a few times, her vision clearly blurring. She turns around, a small, frustrated growl at the back of her throat as she faces the purple drapes that lie across her windows.

"What kind of conversation do you want it to be?" Stiles croaks, docile.

"Oh, fuck you, Stiles," Lydia snaps. It's instantaneous, cutting off the end of his sentence. It feels like the words have been bubbling up since he came into the room. "Are you going to say you're sorry that you got swept up? Or are you going to say that you're sorry you changed your mind about me?" With her back turned to him, Lydia can't see the befuddled expression on Stiles' face. Which is probably for the best. Confusion isn't a good look on him. "Are you going to pretend that you were doing me a favor? Or that you didn't like it? Or that you didn't know what you were doing?"

When he speaks, his voice is disbelieving.

"Lydia… we aren't together."

For a moment, her entire body is frozen. Then, slowly, Lydia turns around to face him, her features inscrutable. She slips out of one shoe. Then the other. And then she takes two steps towards him, her eyes dancing in deceptive delight. It's a look that Stiles knows to be malice. It's also a look that he'd never wanted turned upon him.

"We aren't…. Together? That's your excuse right now?"

"I." He helplessly grasps for words. "It's not an excuse, I thought— well, I thought—"

"We're not dating, we're just sleeping together, so you kiss another girl right in front of me? Seriously?"

The sight of her shoes lying on the floor, one of them knocked to the ground, is what gives Stiles the strength to lift his eyes. Because right now, he wants her at ease. He wants her with her heels on. He wants her to be  _happy_. And if he has to sacrifice his dignity to get that for her, he isn't sure that matters.

He can ask a "what if." He can ask. For her.

"Lydia," Stiles says, voice desperate. "Lydia… do you  _like_ me?"

The air between them is thick with tension. Stiles fixates on the unbalanced twist of Lydia's features; the furrow of her brow, the sweep of her lashes as her eyes widen almost comically.

"Do I… do I  _like_ you?"

"I mean, I thought… I mean, we're friends, we're hooking up as friends, like friends-with-benefits? So I thought—"

" _You thought I was training you to go off and fuck some other girl?_ "

Her voice is so loud, so sharp, that Stiles wouldn't be surprised if everybody at the party had heard her furious words.

"Uh, yeah?" The expression on her face is murderous. Stiles feels the need to elaborate. "I mean, you were just trying to help me out, and I figured that if I could get somebody else to take my virginity off my hands, I might be doing you a favor? You could… you could  _stop_ if you wanted to. Like, you wouldn't have to hook up with me anymore because the job would be done."

"Stiles… I did  _not_ spend two days teaching you  _exactly_ how I like to be kissed so that you could go off and kiss some other girl like that."

It feels like she's just thrown him a lifeline. It feels like the rope is digging into his hands as he tries to climb it before it's too late; tries to understand what he had barely been letting himself consider.

"Meaning… you want me to kiss  _you_ like that?"

"Do you think I let every single person I meet go down on me?" asks Lydia indignantly. She's so  _short_ , standing in the middle of her bedroom looking cross as hell, shaking with barely-contained anger. He's pretty sure she's going to kill him regardless of what he does next. So, instead of holding himself back, he does what he wants.

He smiles. He takes a step forward. Lydia takes a step back. He smiles, if possible, bigger.

"Well, probably not  _every_ person."

"Why are you  _smiling_?" She's actually shrill right now, which is a cross between terrifying and hilarious.

"Okay," Stiles says, raising one of his hands in her direction. "Do you really want to scream at me so loud that you turn my brain to oatmeal with your bad-ass banshee powers?"

"I find dead bodies, Stiles, I don't create them," Lydia spits.

Stiles takes a step forward again. This time, she doesn't take a step back.

"I know, but do you really want to test that right now?"

Another step forward. Lydia lifts her chin up defiantly.

"I'm still debating."

"I, like,  _just_ found your g-spot. Don't waste my knowledge."

This time, he sees the flicker of a smile curving her mouth to the side.

"I won't if you don't," she replies, still sounding stubborn despite the concession in her words.

"God, Lydia," Stiles mutters, taking the final step towards her, so that his body is pressed against hers. "I swear to you, I won't."

His eyes flicker from her mouth to her eyes and back again, before he turns his smile into a sigh, bending down to capture her upper lip between his. She's short like this, so short that she has to dip all the way back to kiss him, and Stiles bends his knees a little to make it easier for her. Lydia starts to pull away, her lips beginning to form words, but Stiles shakes his head. He lurches forward to hold her chin in both of his hands and press his mouth more firmly against hers. Lydia's words fade away as she wraps her fingers around his shirt and sighs into his mouth, letting him kiss her breathless.

There isn't any holding back this time, nothing, and he can feel it from her too. She's got her palms flat against his chest and sliding closer to his jeans, and she keeps accidentally scraping her fingernails against him as she goes to squeeze her hands into fists on his chest. It's like she keeps forgetting where she is, the way she kisses him, and that just makes Stiles kiss her harder and faster. He wants her on top of him, he wants himself to be on top of her, he wants his tongue against hers and on her nipple and circling her clit. He wants  _everything_ , so much that he doesn't  _know_  what he wants, so the world begins and ends with Lydia's mouth moving against his.

"Stiles," Lydia says, lips having a harder time finding his as she struggles with the button on his jeans. "The deal's off."

He twists his mouth to the side in confusion, causing Lydia to pull up short as she leans forward to continue kissing him.

"Uh, what?"

"The deal is off," she begins, grabbing a fistfull of his shirt and dragging him back towards the bed, " because I'm not going to have sex with you because I'm trying to devirginize you." They land on her bed with a thump, Stiles' hands keeping him hovering over Lydia. "I'm going to have sex with you because you're my boyfriend and I want to have sex with my boyfriend." He stares at her, temporarily knocked-off-balance. "I mean, I  _really_ want to have sex with my boyfriend."

"Oh, god, Lydia," he groans, lowering his mouth to hers and kissing her, his heart picking up speed. "That's really fuckin' sexy."

She laughs at him, which makes him pout for a solid twelve seconds until she's got them flipped over and is biting and sucking on his neck. He doesn't realize she's marking him until she keeps  _going_ , sucking the hickey to make it bigger and bigger. And honestly, it's fucking unfair that she'd pinpointed what was hot about it so easily— possession. He wants to be her boyfriend; he wants to be  _hers._ He wants her hickeys all over his skin and her come on his lips and her name always said right after his, as though they always go together.  _StilesandLydia._ Not 'Stiles and Lydia.'  _StilesandLydia_. Every single time.

"Do you want to do this?" asks Lydia, breathily.

Stiles swallows.

"There's people downstairs at your party."

"We'll be quiet."

"Another girl just kissed me."

She leans up and pecks him chastely on the lips.

"I just kissed you." Despite himself, Stiles grins. "We don't have to if you don't want to."

"No, I do, I just…" He hesitates. "'m nervous."

It comes out in a mumble because he  _knows_ it's stupid; knows that Lydia's been fighting for this for longer than he'd realized. But everything has caught up to him in a headrush and suddenly he's on a bed with his barely-undressed girlfriend who has been his girlfriend for less than ten minutes although he's been in love with her since he was eight and she's asking him if he wants to have sex with her.

Lydia's dimples deepen when she smiles at him, though, her thumb stroking his cheek.

"Me too," she whispers. He places his hand over hers where it rests on his cheek. Brings it over to press a kiss against her palm. "You ready?"

Stiles nods, tongue flicking over his dry bottom lip. Lydia sits on his hips, pulling her party dress over her head before she reaches over him to her dresser. The tips of her curly hair brush over his skin as she grabs a condom out of her top drawer. She climbs off of his lap, then offers the packet to him, looking at him with eyes unclouded by any worry.

That's what tells him it's going to be okay.

He rips open the package with slightly trembling hands before deciding that it might be better to do this under the covers. While Stiles slips under Lydia's sheets, she kicks the comforter to the floor and checks to make sure the drapes are shut. He's put a condom on before, one that he'd stolen from Scott's dresser because he wanted see what it was like. But it's never been in such a high-pressure situation, and Stiles' hands tremble as he rolls on the condom under the sheets.

"Got it, got it," he says, wincing a little bit.

Lydia kisses him on the cheek when she hears the snap, then nudges over to kiss him on the mouth, her lips tilted upwards into a smile. When his hand slides down her back, he realizes that she'd taken off her panties at one point. It's easy to tuck a finger into her and rub teasingly at her walls, building up to the hurt noise she gets at the back of her throat when he's taunting her too efficiently.

This time, Lydia doesn't wait for him to add another finger. Instead, she slips under the sheets, letting them settle around her waist as she positions herself over him. Slowly, she rubs her clit up and down his dick, eyes latching onto his. When Stiles nods, wetting his bottom lip nervously, Lydia takes him in hand and slowly eases herself onto him, air escaping her lungs in a rush as she settles him deeper.

For several moments, Stiles' mind shorts out. Everything goes blue, then black, then purple, and then she's seated all the way and he feels her clenching around him as if she's trying to get closer. Suddenly he knows that he can't miss another moment of this. Stiles opens his eyes to see Lydia on top of him, her hands on his knees as she begins to slowly slide up and down, getting used to the way he feels inside of her. Her breasts are snuggled into the lacy white bra that she'd been wearing underneath her party dress, her hair is still curled, albeit a little messy, and her deep red lipstick is smudged from kissing him.

Needing to touch her, Stiles moves his hand up the middle of her stomach, splaying it flat across the smooth skin there. He slides his hand up, then back down to her hip, and then up again, reveling. Instead of focusing on the way she feels around him, he pays attention to the hitch of her breath when his hands find her hips.

"Mmmm," sighs Lydia, and then she's moving faster, placing her hands squarely on his chest as she works herself over his cock. Stiles finally gets the wherewithal to try to do something, and he raises his hips to meet hers, groaning at the sound made by their skin slapping together.

"How's it feel?" asks Lydia knowingly, laughing when she sees Stiles' incredulous reaction to the question. Fluidly, she follows the path of her hands up his chest and to the pillow so that she can lay on top of him and kiss him. Her stomach and breasts brush tantalizingly against him and the fingers of her left hand find Stiles' hair and wind themselves tight into the strands and it's  _too much_ , loving her like this and feeling her like this all at the same time. "For me too," she murmurs, pulling away to look at his face.

Stiles finds himself obsessed with her ribcage, running his fingers over the bones there as she pants into his mouth, watching him. There's a fire in her eyes that he's only seen at a simmer before— this is full-flame, warm and light and mischievous. Lydia only closes her eyes when his hand moves to her back, rubbing tenderly while she grinds herself against his dick.

"Lydia," he says, desperate. "God, you feel so…"

"What?" she asks, her hands sliding down his chest when she sits up again, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she returns to riding him. "I feel so what?"

But he can't find words because her cheeks are pink and her lips are swollen and she's slamming herself down on him harder, adding a grind every few passes, her head falling back as she finds a spot she like particularly well. Instead of speaking, Stiles pulls the cups of her bra down and takes her breasts in his hands, brushing the nipples with his fingers and squeezing tight when she starts to close her eyes and forget to look at him.

It's suddenly too much, watching her like this, and Stiles can't help the moisture gathering in his eyes. He looks away from her to compose himself, and is met with the sight of the place that their bodies are joined together. As he watches, his cock slides into her over and over again, deep inside of Lydia's body. Awestruck, Stiles places his hand on her pelvis, sliding his thumb down so that he can touch her clit. Lydia cries out, too loud this time, and it makes his eyes roll back a little bit as his breathing picks up.

"'M sorry, 'm gonna—" he says. She leans forward, falling over Stiles as she begins to fuck herself down on him from a different angle. Lydia's breast falls close to his lips and he sucks her nipple into his mouth, spilling into the condom as he comes hard inside of her.

"Oh my god, Stiles," she moans, reaching down to rub her clit as she continues to move over him. He grips her hair with his left hand as he moves his right hand down to the place they're joined, determinedly playing with her clit. Lydia kisses him one last time before she comes, still lightly rocking her body over his cock and his stomach.

He's still inside of her when she straightens up, beaming down at him like he's something she'd just made in art class. Her thumb soothes over his chin, then over the hickey that she's made on him, as she catches her breath.

"You…" He doesn't know what he wants to say for once; instead, Stiles stares up at Lydia feeling a brand of wonderstruck that he has never experienced before despite all the supernatural occurrences in his life. "Lydia, I—"

She climbs off of him gingerly, settling onto the bed next to him, flat on her stomach, the straps of her bra sliding down her arms.

"Just tell me it was worth the wait," suggests Lydia lowly. "Tell me you're glad it was me."

"No," he insists. "'Cause that's not, like, that's not…  _enough_ , that's not everything, y'know, that's not—"

His Adam's apple bobs, and then he makes the split second decision to stop trying to decide at all. Instead, he pulls her to him, scooping her into a hug. He surrounds her, his sweaty skin pressing against hers, but Lydia doesn't seem to mind, lowering her nose to his shoulder and inhaling deeply.

And when she smiles against him, unable to keep it contained, it's so much better than anything that could be said.

* * *

He sits on the edge of Lydia's bed, legs folded underneath him, and watches in fascination as she freshens up her makeup. In the reflection of the mirror, he can see the studiousness on her face— the way she's focused, like she's doing a math problem or trying to solve a puzzle before the timer runs out.

It's nice, he thinks. Normal in a way that he's never quite had before, even  _with_ Lydia, because as regular and average and unimportant as it has always been to be a boy who is in love with a girl, now she's his girlfriend and she's letting him watch her put on makeup and it is quiet and important and  _theirs_.

Lydia is in the middle of refreshing her lipstick when she glances up at Stiles, noticing him watching her in the mirror. Her head tilts to the side, eyes curious, and then she slowly caps the lipstick and sets it carefully down on her dresser.

"I'm not in love with you, you know."

The words are said simply, factually, but not coldly. There's a note of affection to her words that tells Stiles that, to Lydia, the face of what she's just said isn't what she meant. Yet Stiles still feels a wash of disappointment, causing him to lower his eyes from hers and tap his fingers nervously against his jeans.

"Ookaaay?"

He's cautious, and a little irked that she would end this night by saying that she's  _not_ in love with him, but it's Lydia, and Stiles always gets to the logic in Lydia eventually, so he waits.

"I know you're in love with me. And you can be. And that's okay. But I want you to know that I'm not in love with you. So that, when I do say it eventually, you'll know I mean it."

It sends him reeling, a little bit, the pure confidence in her voice. Like it's just simple; factual. And, in a way, she's doing it for him. He can tell from the way she gives him one final, austere nod before turning back to her makeup mirror and uncapping her lipstick.

The noise of the party downstairs is starting to come back to him now, filtering into the room. He wants to go down there and hold her hand— he thinks she'll let him, which is even better. Stiles shrugs back into his t-shirt, then hunts around for the flannel that they had tossed off of him at one point.

"Stiles," Lydia says, voice loud. He turns around to face her, a little surprised, and finds her hand stopped mid-motion, her cheeks flushed even more under the blush, her eyes dancing in the light of the mirror. "When I  _do_ say it." She pauses. Mashes her lips together. "I'm going to mean it  _so_  much. I'm going to be so in love with you someday, Stiles. All you have to do is…." She stops, searching for the words. "Be my best friend."

His throat constricts, looking at her. His pinky tingles.

"Yeah," Stiles says, voice rough and thick. "Yeah, I can do that."

When she kisses him moments later, a red string of her lipstick smears across his skin.

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, time to go study for an anthro midterm that I will most certainly fail because I am a HUMANITIES MAJOR and we should not be expected to take gen eds. See y'all on the flip flop. 
> 
> I hope you have a wonderful day, stay safe, give someone a hug, drink a delicious hot beverage, and remember that you are loved and that there's always something good just around the riverbend. 
> 
> -Rachel


End file.
